Opinion — A Mini-Rant On The Publishing Wars

Scribner's Bookstore, Books as Treasures (Princeton)

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman and the prestigious Author’s Guild as well as many best-selling authors have pretty much painted Amazon as super villain and enemy of freedom and democracy.  Krugman made the point in a recent column that Amazon is not playing fair with Hatchette, the last of the big American publishers and that this endangers the American way of life. I’m a fan of Krugman, the Guild and many of the anti-Amazon authors, most of whom are gigantic businesses themselves.  I have no doubt Amazon is playing hardball and, as is the case in all major battles, folks get hurt. It wasn’t long ago that Borders and Barnes and Noble decimated independent bookstores through predatory location practices getting better deals from big publisher and therefore offering discounts not possible for the independents to offer. The marketplace changes, technology evolves, reader habits respond to the environment. 

But let’s look at some facts and put them in perspective. Hachette isn’t an American publisher.  It is French. That is certainly no crime and its country of origin wouldn’t put me off one iota, but this publisher, like the others in the Top Five, is also gobbling or trying to gobble up smaller publishers who, as a matter of practice, are more open to publishing non-best-selling writers and giving new writers a chance. The Big Five publishers are global and we need not think of them as vulnerable little Davids facing the Amazon Goliath. The truth is, at least for the moment, Amazon provides affordable services for authors and small publishers who seek entry into the marketplace. These aren’t saints and sinners we’re talking about but market forces waging battle. Both sides are causing collateral damage.

The other song being sung to shame Amazon is that the master on-line retailer considers books to be “products.”   I deeply empathize.  Books are special in my eyes. They are not widgets. However different folks look at what we do in different ways.  Not only do we create “products,” we create “content” in some minds, however abhorrent those words are to us.

Do the publishers hold the book to be as sacred as writers do?  Do they hold it in higher regard than Amazon?  I remember reading that publishers like Random House and Scribners used to keep money aside for talented writers to keep them afloat when the writer’s books didn’t sell. The company took a loss for the sake of art and because they considered books more than widgets.  I was lucky enough to visit the great Scribner & Sons Book Store on Fifth Avenue in New York before its various metamorphoses. These were hallowed grounds, books as a religion. There was no doubt the publisher held books in high regard. So when I hear authors use the product argument, but only against Amazon, I’m more than wary especially in the age of author James Patterson’s factory-produced novels and Stephen King, who has a new book out every five minutes. Bless him. He is tremendously successful because he is tremendously talented; but his one-sided criticism of Amazon, if not self-serving, rings false to me.

Indianapolis Central Library, A Place Where Books Are Not Products (Tierney)

And independent booksellers: No doubt Amazon is making life difficult, but have you forgotten how the big publishers treated you when the big box bookstores roamed the earth?

I’m not about to suggest the Vatican start the saint-making process for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. If nothing else, he’s been called on to address a few unpleasant workplace issues.  I am saying that we are seeing the dirty business of big business messing around in the book business.  With only five publishers dominating the world market, should we be surprised?  Seems to me the only entity holding a genuine reverence for books are public libraries, which have been singled out for severe budget cuts all across the country.

Film Pairing — Jail Time With The 25th Hour And The Shawshank Redemption

In the 25th Hour, the character played by Ed Norton has 24 hours before he must begin his seven-year sentence for drug dealing.  As the time nears, he engages in a long and scathing rant against every group of human beings he can identify, each ethnic group, religious faith, and each social class in New York City’s vast and diverse population before he realizes they are not responsible for who he is or what he has done.  Norton is the central character in Spike Lee’s post 9-11 masterpiece, but we get a serious look at a trust-fund high school teacher who is torn by fear more than principle in his desire for a street-wise, underage, needy student.  Philip Seymour Hoffman is the repressed professor, one of Norton’s best friends.  Norton’s other close friend is a successful and ethically challenged Wall Street trader, who sees fit to judge others’ ethical behavior. Barry Pepper gives us a preview of his future role playing a real-life sleaze in Casino Jack.  The underrated Brian Cox plays Norton’s father, whose life has been inadvertently put in jeopardy by his son’s actions.  Rosario Dawson, Norton’s girlfriend, completes the superb ensemble cast who examine taking responsibility for one’s actions with regard to others, those close to you as well as the larger society in which you live.  The 2002 film was based on the book of the same name by David Benioff, who also wrote the screenplay.

Most films, even many of the good ones, eventually fade away.  Some films, much like the 25th Hour gain respect and audiences as time passes.  The Shawshank Redemption is one that while it was highly regarded by critics in 1994 when it was first released, it didn’t do well at the box office.  Since then it has continued to garner praise and viewership, doing very well on cable and especially well on DVD 18 years later.

Based on a novella by Stephen King, called Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, it made it to the big screen with Tim Robbins as a banker convicted of his wife’s murder and Morgan Freeman as the banker’s new prison buddy.  The film, released in 1994, is not fast-paced; but it is solid gold.  As a companion piece to the 25th Hour, we must again think about what it means to lock someone away for years and years.  What does this do to a human being?   Without being a “bleeding heart,” and clearly understanding that dangerous people need to be separated from society, the prison system, then and now, can and often is our democracy’s dirty, little secret.

In this case, we witness a man who has done no wrong on the outside, switches sides, it appears, on the inside.  And we witness a man, played by the incomparable James Whitmore, who has spent 50 years on the inside try to adjust to the unfamiliar world outside.  The Shawhank Redemption is about freedom and hope in the most confining and hopeless conditions.  However, it is not schmaltzy.  The film reminds us how difficult holding on to hope can be. 

The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards.

Recommending something to sip while watching these two intense films is difficult.  For the 25th Hour, we can pick up on the “going away party” with champagne freely flowing.  With The Shawshank Redemption, we might want to look at the great scene on the hot tar roof, where the convicts get an unusual gift, ice-cold bottles of “Bohemian” beer.