... "and he is us," so goes the Pogo cartoon from the 1970s. David Streitfield of the New York Times (who ordinarily writes about agriculture and real estate for the business desk), penned an article yesterday titled "Bargain Hunting for Books," in which he professes to feel somewhat guilty, in an era of bookstore closing and publishing industry layoffs, for buying a book online for 25 cents. He posits that what's really undermining the book industry is not the absence of casual readers but the changing habits of devoted readers.
Although ultimately Streitfield seems relatively unapologetic and even predicts the end of brick-and-mortar stores, the most disturbing comment he makes is the one he and other readers who only seek out used books may live one day to regret, namely, "Sales of classics and other backlist titles used to be the financial engine of publishers and bookstores as well, allowing them to take chances on new authors." That certainly doesn't bode well for the future of writers, regardless of the distribution medium. If you're an already-established writer, good for you. If not, good luck.
Hi BV,
Talk about great minds! I read this article in the NYT, wrote a blog post about it last night which went up this morning and I, too, quoted POGO!!
After reading your post, I went back to the original article to see if I took the POGO quote from the article, but it's not there.
There we are, thinking alike.
Happy New Year.
Terrie
Posted by: Terrie Moran | December 29, 2008 at 11:03 AM
Pogo was one of my favorite comic strips as a youngster. My father even had some first editions which he loaned to one of his students and never saw again. Sigh. Another Pogo quotation which has relevance to the publishing industry right now and its combination of terror or optimism (depending upon who you ask) is: "We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities."
Posted by: BV Lawson | December 29, 2008 at 12:20 PM