Comments on: On The Future of Publishing https://booksquare.com/on-the-future-of-publishing/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&%23038;utm_campaign=on-the-future-of-publishing Dissecting the publishing industry with love and skepticism Sat, 15 Oct 2005 00:10:35 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Rick Robinson https://booksquare.com/on-the-future-of-publishing/#comment-108515 Sat, 15 Oct 2005 00:10:35 +0000 http://www.booksquare.com/archives/2005/10/14/1617/#comment-108515 I mean, uh, “independent minor industry.”

]]> By: Rick Robinson https://booksquare.com/on-the-future-of-publishing/#comment-108514 Sat, 15 Oct 2005 00:09:27 +0000 http://www.booksquare.com/archives/2005/10/14/1617/#comment-108514 I don’t quite buy this bit of alarmism, precisely BECAUSE books are “a peripherally profitable sub-genre of entertainment.” Aren’t some of the conglomerates already starting to divest (i.e., unload) their publishing divisions?

There is no real money in books, and for an entertainment conglomerate, publishing is not a particularly efficient way to leverage their movies, much less come up with the next high concept. So it will drift back toward being an indepent minor industry catering to an oddball market.

Sure, literature is going to jell in a jandbasket, but there is nothing new about that – it has been ever since around 650 BC, when booking agents for the Greek epic poetry circuit started hiring second-rate hacks to churn out cheap knockoffs of the Iliad and Odyssey.

— Rick

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