Diary of a Mad Editor

Posts Tagged ‘Books’

If You’re a Publisher Life Can Only Get More Demanding

While the battle continues over Amazon’s antitrust case, their on-demand printing unit, Booksurge, just dodged a bullet in an unrelated defamation suit. Big John Law has reaffirmed what I’m always telling young wannabe writers who use POD printing services — that such services are not real publishers. Publishers share liability with an author in such cases, but printers don’t. While this is good news for POD providers, it’s food for thought for novice writers looking for short-cuts. In fact, anyone who considers POD should weigh the pros and cons.

Yet, despite the negative aspects of POD, the subject has been in the news a lot lately. Why? Because Print-On-Demand technology is becoming part of the mainstream. Both the reputable and disreputable alike are joining the POD bandwagon. What was once just for amateur authors and vanity operations is now an acceptable means of producing a book. Now we’re seeing Independant booksellers getting in on the action as is Carnegie-Mellon University. POD is even being used to print periodicals. Scammers are taking work from the public domain and selling overpriced POD copies on Ebay. Now, I’m a voracious reader, but even I’m not so desperate for literature that I’d pay $128 for a POD knock-off of Wuthering Heights. That’s kind of like an anorexic trying to buy Phentermine without a prescription (okay, that’s a lame analogy, but still, who’s stupid enough to pay $128 for a book you could get for a couple of dollars at a used book store?). I even read on a forum a while back where a guy suggested it would be a good idea to print back issues of comic using POD (something I don’t think comic book collectors would necessarily be in favor of as that would devalue the market).

On-demand printing is a marvel and has opened-up all kinds of possibilities, but it also poses a lot of questions and problems for the future that we are going to have to deal with. Are we ready for it?

I Could Write a Country & Western Song Called, “Blank Stares ‘N’ Blank Pages Cryin’ in My Beer”

Yesterday, while warming-up before doing my exercises, I was watching a little bit of that game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? What the hell, I thought. I don’t much care for game shows, but I like trivia. I’ll play along for awhile. Well, this guy went out on what should’ve been a fairly easy question — I mean even if he hadn’t read the book, he should have at least heard of it before. It’s a pretty famous novel. Anyhow, the question was: Actor Jude Law was named after a Beatles song and a novel by what author? Four English novelists were listed. The correct answer, of course, was Thomas Hardy, who wrote Jude the Obscure. You know: Hey,Jude (the Beatles song) + Jude the Obscure = Jude Law. Now I understand how the guy might never have read the book, but how does a college-educated person in the United States go through their entire life without ever hearing about Jude the Obscure and the fact that Thomas Hardy wrote it? Am I completely mental for thinking that he should know of the book? But, no . . . he says, “Joseph Conrad.” You human buttcrack, you used up all your lifelines, so if you honestly don’t know Joseph Conrad’s writing from Hardy’s, walk the fuck away! Don’t guess.

I’m thinking about this afterwards. Thinking and stewing about it. Nothing to me that the guy loses money, but what does this say about Americans? Do you realize that right now nearly half of the U.S. population is considered to be functionally illiterate? Doesn’t that scare the piss out of you? It sure as shit scares fuck out of me. Think about it for a minute? We are still technically the top dog among industrialized nations, yet our literacy rates are in a tail spin. Is it any wonder we elect a primate to run the country and are off fighting ill-conceived wars around the world? People this stupid have access to guns, rockets and nuclear weapons and we’re worried about Osama Bin Laden? Oh man, we are so fucked.