Date: Thu, 25 Feb 93 10:43:38 PST
From: kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth)
Subject: File 3--Re: File 4--Technology & Populist Publishing (#5.15)

Sheesh.  Of course book publishing is business.  Why should people
bear the great expense of typesetting, printing, and distributing a
book if they don't expect to make any money out of it.  Sure, you'll
say it's for the love of books or the pursuit of knowledge, but that's
bullshit.  Remember, if the publisher can't sell the book, that means
NOBODY WANTS TO READ IT.

Now maybe you know of a bunch of books that nobody wants to read but
are so critical to our intellectual growth that they must be published
anyway.  I don't.  I see a bunch of hack authors who THINK they have
something important to say, and a bunch of cultists, and a bunch of
paranoid conspiracy theorists, who can't get their garbage published
and want to take it out on anybody but themselves.

Sure an occasional gem may get missed by an editor pressed for time
and buried under mounds of material.  But remember, those guys are
paid to find all the good stuff.  They're quite motivated.  I don't
think they miss very often.

Does a bunch of dreck get published?  Sure.  Is it worse than your
dreck?  Maybe but maybe not.  My father has written a book about his
dog for cirssakes.  He can't get it published even though he's
convinced everyone wants to learn of his dog's great spirit and almost
telepathic link to her master.  What's wrong with this picture?  Is it
the cruel money hungry publishing industry, or perhaps has the author
misjudged the world's need to learn about his hound?

In short, I don't blame the publishing industry.  Everyone in the
universe thinks they can write the great american novel.  99% of them
are dead wrong.

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