The publishing industry's ever escalating failure is one problem Obama can't fix. Selling books, maybe even reading in general seems to be headed for a big disaster. Such news comes as even more of a shock since "American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual." (Nicholas D. Kristof, 'Obama and the War on Brains', The New York Times, Sunday, November 9, 2008.) But the president elect, just like the UK's Jordan, or America's Comic giants. It's celebrity, celebrity women's fiction, celebrity confessions, celebrity advice or ...bust as far as I can work out for the adult book market. You're on a 2 billion doller contract with Random House, or you're using the faculty photocopier to send out slush pile submissions. There is a nice and dismal Gawker article "Publishers Hope Americas Tire of Blogs, Among Other Christmas Wishes", which sums up the mood.
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