Here's One Former Editor that Just Doesn't Get It

I was almost finished reading this nice NYT article about publishing when I came across this sad quote:

"Giving an author's book away for nothing on the Web as a way to market books seems a mirage to me," Tina Brown (former editor of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair) wrote in an e-mail message after the lunch.  "All it does is feed the hungry angles of journalists and bloggers who plunder it without any of the author's context or nuance and makes the reader feel there is nothing new to learn from the genuine article when it finally limps on its weary way to a book shop."

Ouch.  Speaking for plunderers, er, bloggers everywhere, I think Ms. Brown needs to wake up and smell the viral marketing coffee.

Comments

[Michael A. Banks]

Interesting to note that Frank Warren gives away his books, piecemeal, at postsecret.com, yet the books sell extremely well.

His books aren't quite conventional, but still ...
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com