The Publishing Contrarian

Boy, was I ever wrong! Last July I was practically turning cartwheels upon learning that George L. Jones had been hired away from Saks Department Store Group, where he had been earning $2,286,695+, to become the president, ceo and director of Borders Group. I eagerly anticipated an infusion of retail savvy from outside the self-protective and insular world of book publishing that would shake things up and ultimately transform the way business was done.

At the time he was hired, Jones pledged that he would not, repeat, would not, copycat what Barnes & Noble was doing, yet on March 22, 2007 he announced that he would significantly increase Border’s proprietary publishing program and launch a Web site—a site surely designed to compete head-on with Barnes & Noble online and Amazon.

Hello!  Wal-Mart, Costco, Sam’s, BJ’s Will Not Shelve a Borders Group Book. 

May I suggest, Mr. Jones, you hightail it over to Barnes & Noble Annual Reports online and look at the P&L statements for the imprint Barnes & Noble Books and see how they have fared, financially. I am not talking about Sterling Publishing, which B&N, Inc. acquired in 2003. I’m talking about the Barnes & Noble Books’ imprint, specifically.

I suspect that the vehement resistance certain to be displayed by Costco, Sam’s, BJ’s, and Wal-Mart—all the big, blousy retailers who make so much money off hawking books to the shopping cart set—might cause some surprise and then real consternation at Borders Group, Inc., when it becomes apparent that competing retailers are no more interested in improving Borders’ P&L than they were in improving Barnes & Noble’s.

Wake up and smell Seattle’s Best Coffee, Mr. Jones!

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Bill O’Reilly missed it when he talked about it on The O’Reilly Factor. Meredith Vieira, the Today Show host, missed it when she interviewed the three girls, young women really, future leaders of America all, who stood up in school on open-mic night and recited two lines from Eve Ensler’s play, The Vagina Monologues. No, they both blew it. It was not only the controversial recitation of the word “vagina” that should have been addressed, but the flawed character exhibited by the three girls when they lied to the high school principal about whether they would recite the two lines or not. 

Oh, yeah, right. The girls didn’t outright lie. They didn’t SAY they were going to recite the lines, but when asked by the principal, they implied that they didn’t intend to. That’s the issue I’d like to address.

Splitting Hairs, Double Talk and Obfuscation 101.

You’ve no doubt heard the story. The high school principal forbade teenagers Hannah Levinson, Elan Stahl and Megan Reback from reciting these lines: 

“My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women’s army. I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina’s country.”

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I am so tired of hearing unpublished writers (I won’t call a writer an author until he/she can actually show me a bound book or a buyable online version) wail about not being able to find a literary agent or get published or get readers to buy direct. Last night I practically leapt across a dinner table to throttle a wannabe author because he simply could not or would not absorb what I was telling him—that what he desperately needed was someone to assess his book and let him know if it was good or bad.

Over the main course I listened politely to the very familiar saga of an 80,000 word novel that had taken three years to write and that was destined to turn his life around as soon as his literary genius was revealed to all. Over dessert I nodded encouragingly at the synopsis of the story. Over coffee I braced for what I knew was coming next. Would I read the manuscript?

NO! The answer is NO. I will not read a total stranger’s manuscript. I will not spend hours and hours curled up reading a manuscript or an online book unless I know the writer and for personal reasons want to make the time available to read his book. I consider reading a manuscript, any manuscript, A LOT LIKE WORK.

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