April L. Hamilton said:
You think you are curators of literature, and both authors and guardians of culture, but those functions cannot possibly be performed by any organization being run with a primary profit motive. You are no more curators of literature than Nike is a curator of shoes. If you wish to remain solvent, you can only be authors and guardians of culture to the extent that it helps (or at least, doesn’t harm) your bottom line.
No publisher is acting as a "curator of literature." In fact I don't think this person even knows what the word "curator" means; and no, it's not a librarian, either. And no, publishers aren't interested in that, at all.
News Flash: Publishers, like editors, and agents? They're in it for the money. No, really! Their jobs like, you know, pay the bills. Yes, most of them also like books and reading, but curators? Not hardly. Publishers will publish absolute crap if enough people will buy it. They do this every day, and it's a venerable literary tradition that is well over a thousand years. (Yes, there is a medieval equivalent to the
National Enquirer).
Secondly, Ms. Hamilton seems abysmally uninformed; the publishing industry is not in "more" trouble than any other consumer product industry is; they're all in trouble--because people don't have any money. Books are a luxury item. They always have been, and always will be.
Her comments about hardover books are half-witted in the extreme, to wit:
April L. Hamilton said:
Many times I’ve wanted a book that I couldn’t afford in hardcover, or didn’t think was worth the hardcover price, but the book was never released in paperback. Apparently you aren't aware of this, but cost-conscious consumers---and this group encompasses most consumers---will frequently "wait for the paperback" in the same way they will often opt to skip a movie at the theater and "wait for the DVD" or "wait for it to come out on cable". This business practice alone probably costs you millions of dollars a year in unsold hardcovers and lost paperback sales, yet you continue to do it because it’s traditional to your industry and you’ve attached a certain degree of status and internal fanfare to the idea of a hardcover release.
Well no, actually, they don't attach prestige to the hardcover. Authors do, and some readers do, but publishers? Not so much. Hardcovers sell to libraries; that's their main excuse. A hardcover is more durable; if a publisher thinks libraries will be buying a book in sufficient quantities, they'll release it in hardcover. A hardcover has four or five times the circulation longevity of a paperback.
You know, it's not like this stuff is rocket science. It's not like there's a publishing conspiracy. And by the way? "Indie publisher" does not mean I self-published my own book. Speaking of which: this is the blurb for her book, from Amazon:
book blurb said:
I announced the official launch of my new online community, Publetariat.com, on 2/11/2009. The site got over 7,000 hits in the first 24 hours following its launch, and 3-month average Alexa traffic rank in the top 6.92% of all websites-a figure which, when adjusted to account for the brief time period during which Publetariat had been open to the public, equates to a rank in the top 2% of all websites. What makes these results even more astonishing still is the fact that I'd only come up with the idea for the site one month before, on January 15, 2009. In 18 days, I'd taken the site from concept to go-live. In just 25 days, I'd taken it from concept to an Alexa traffic rating in the top 2% of all websites! In this book I explain how I did it, and provide the practical, concrete tips and advice you need to create your own online community success story.
This is filled with so many misunderstandings, beginning with the word "hits," that I am astonished. Her interpretation of ranking data is innovative, to say the least, not to mention the use of the word "community" in ways that make me wish she'd spent more time in online communities than she seems to have spent.
So yeah, clueless at best, and possibly, mostly interested in driving site traffic.
I'm increasingly tired of people who think publishing means
Writer writes book
Writer gets cover from digital stock and 'shops it
Writer prints book
Writer promotes book
Then A Miracle or Three Occurs
Writer is rich
At least she doesn't talk about bookmarks and lollipop trees.