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Loading... Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Futureby Epstein. Jason
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  RicDay | Jan 25, 2009 |  This is a fast and interesting read about the publishing industry in America--where it's been, and where it's going. Full of anecdotes and interesting tidbits about publishing, this is a good read. If it sounds at all interesting, I highly recommend it. (  ) whitewavedarling | Dec 6, 2008 | Though more of a personal history than an objective analysis of the past, present and future of the publishing industry, Epstein's book still gives an insightful and informative view of the machine from the inside. (  )1  theshamblers | Nov 18, 2007 | Although the title may suggest a dry analysis of the book publishing industry, this book is much more the fascinating memoir of a man who worked behind the scenes at the center of post-World War II American literary life. Epstein vividly recounts his glory days at Doubleday where he created the Anchor Books line that launched the "quality paperback' revolution, at Random House working with literary giants like Ralph Ellison, Norman Mailer, Edmund Wilson, and Vladimir Nabokov, and his role in founding the New York Review of Books. Epstein laments the passing of this world in the 1980s with the consolidation of the publishing industry under a few massive conglomerations and the rise of giant chain bookstores, arguing that these massive, impersonal, profit-driven entities are unable to develop and sustain the kind of literary movement (modernism) that blossomed in America from the 1920s through the 1960s. However, Epstein optimistically concludes that the development of computers and the internet will usher in a new golden literary era by allowing writers to develop direct relationships with their readers. Unfortunately, I think Epstein may be overly optimistic about the future of publishing, succumbing to "gee whiz" enthusiasm about the technological potential of the internet but ignoring the struggle that is emerging over what kind of internet we are going to have. The internet holds great potential for reinvigorating literature, but only if it remains an open, widely accessible medium we have been blessed to experience so far. If the media and telecom giants succeed in their attempts to dominate the internet and transform it into a centralized medium like TV-on-steroids, publishing in whatever new forms it takes will remain the bland, profit-driven enterprise that Epstein laments. This shortcoming aside, Epstein's book is a lively and insightful personal history of the publishing industry and the decline of literature. Well worth reading for anyone who cares about books. (  )2 PrinceLackadasia | Jun 1, 2007 | I can't tell you how much I enjoy reading informed and coherent opinions. Too many times people think volume and emotion automatically validate points and give arguments merit. Well Epstein needs neither volume or ranting emotions. He is well informed and gets you to think about publishing in new ways. This is one of those books you'll enjoy simply because it allows you to have a conversation that you may not have otherwise had. And it's all about books and publishing. This is one for people who like books, all things publishing and thinking about the future of our culture. Even if you find yourself disagreeing with Epstein, you'll find it well worth your time to read. (  )2 trav | Jul 27, 2006 |  no reviews | add a review
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It was in that era that Epstein came of age as a publisher, first at Doubleday in the 1950s, where he founded the successful Anchor Books, the first line of high-quality paperback reissues of classics. The four succeeding decades he spent at Random House, which in that time grew from a family-type shop into one of the largest and most profitable trade publishing houses in the U.S. (currently owned by the German media titan Bertelsmann). Epstein's chronicle of New York publishing jumps around nimbly in time--at one point, all the way back to the 19th century--but it is in recounting the heady, culturally efflorescent postwar years that he waxes most tender, regaling us with vignettes of Ralph Ellison, Mary McCarthy, John O'Hara, Frank O'Hara, W.H. Auden, Chester Kallman, and John Ashbery. Throughout, his entrepreneurial spirit in the service of good books is evident--first in the founding (along with, among others, his wife Barbara) of the still-extant New York Review of Books, then in the thorny 30-year process of publishing the classics imprint Library of America, and in the launching of The Reader's Catalog, a mail-order service from which customers could choose from what nearly every book on the planet in print--and which deservedly has been called the hard-copy precursor to the very site you're browsing right now.
Like The Business of Books, the recent memoir from former Pantheon Books head Andre Schiffrin (Epstein's longtime colleague within Random House), Epstein's book decries the extent to which superstores like Barnes & Noble have forced the high-stakes (and seldom fruitful) corporatization of book publishing. But Epstein prefers to look past the current situation to an imminent day when writers will sell directly to readers over the Internet, a format that will still demand the services of editors, publicists, and marketers but will cut out the costly middlemen of publishing companies, distributors, and superstores (though not small booksellers, he assures us, which nurture bonds among booklovers that even the Web can't sever). Yes, there's money to be made in trade books, Epstein asserts, but not necessarily overnight. And in this brisk, affable, and forward-looking volume, Epstein's own broad-ranging experience in the book biz seems to bear out his recurring theme: do it for love, not money, and the money (if not necessarily the millions) will eventually follow. --Timothy Murphy
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:03 -0400)
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Looking back over the book last December (2008), I was struck by just how accurate most of those predictions have proven to be. Print on demand technology has not yet reached the point of being available in your local bookstores, but it is getting there. The Internet is disrupting the retail book trade, which has come to be dominated by "big box" chain stores which sell books like soap powder: stock lots of the few best-sellers; turn over the rest quickly, and don't bother to hire staff who know or care much about books.
I would love to see a fresh take on this topic, looking at what may happen next, now that Sony Readers, Kindles, and smartphones are giving readers new ways to acquire and read books, and publishers are scrambling to launch digital editions (and to figure out how to avoid the mistakes the music industry made).
A very good read, even today. (