Everything that's wrong with the publishing industry in one link

[Jon Loomis]

http://gma.yahoo.com/amanda-knox-gets-4-million-book-deal-harpercol...

[Jon Loomis]

All good points.  The times, they are a-changin....

[EDWARD C MORGAN]

Ingrid, I agree on this point.

I'm a pretty heavy reader, and by and large, I still save money by buying my books (paperbacks) from used bookstores, or going to the library, even when compared to buying "new books" from authors I know and like in an electronic format.

Now, the Amanda Knox books. Smart move, I don't care what anyone says. Amanda and the publisher will make an absolute scad of money.

[Dana King]

"If the Knox book doesn't earn out, and sometimes these big name tell-alls flop miserably, then it'll be the small profit-making midlist that end up subsidizing that failure, and paying the salaries of the execs who made the decision to buy the damn thing in the first place."

That 1% and 99% concept holds true in a lot of places, doesn't it?

[I. J. Parker]

Yup.

[J W Nelson]

Beautiful and apt comparison, sir. 

[Jon Loomis]

Almost everywhere, it turns out.

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

Uh, oh.   

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

Actually, what I recall from my schooling indicates it's probably more based on bell curve and standard deviations (and don't blame it on me...I prefer non-standard deviation, myself)

So you start getting a "sigma four" book going down in flames, it's going to nail the whole rest of the tail, even the sigma fours and threes at the remainders end of the stick.  But yes, they'll need to squeeze it out of the nipple end of the curve.  

What I wonder, if the 1 percenters get 99 percent of the lagniappe supposedly,  is there some inverse proportion thing working here for real.  Obviously the sigma four of basketball playing population are doing to grab the bell bulge of income.  

What bummed me out when I got dragged into the book-writing thing was how it looks just like Hollywood, everything pushed out to the pin dance at the end of the lever by diseased egos.  And I get the strong impression they are bringing on some of the same scumbags..from Melrose to Fifth Avenue without even changing their hairpieces.