08-15-2006, 01:17 PM
Quote:I´m sure they could make a few more numbers for the non so rich enthusiasts out there.The point of publishing is that you have two main offices.
At the first entrance, you sell beautiful academic books. There's also a desk for a journal on poetry that no one reads. These books are only there for prestige; and these books must circulate not widely, because then people might become smart, and then the second office is no longer making profits.
The second entrance, on the other side of the block, leads to an altogether different publishing house. Here, they sell cheap books and make the money.
An example, here in Holland, is the Weekblad Pers Groep. It publishes my very own books, which -I hope- take away a prejudice or two; but through another department, it publishes magazines like Runner's World and Men's Health, which are (in my prejudiced view) opium of the people.
What worries me, is that the "good books department" is increasingly copying methods from the "popular press". For example, facts are no longer checked, and they don't sell books, but authors. It is very unpleasant.
