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Uh, yeah, talk about phoning it in. That was the best they could come up with?
All the response does is reiterate the services that publishers theoretically provide, such as editing, proofing, editorial "input", marketing and publicity. As others have already pointed out, an author can purchase the editing & marketing services for himself, and whether a mid-list author actually receives a healthy dose of these from a publisher is questionable. Certainly, the industry's publishing of back-list books so far shows little editing/proofing or marketing. They are simply scanning old books and throwing them up on the web to make an easy buck--in many cases, without even a cursory read-through of the OCR'd output.
The other points she makes are laughable. She offers up DRM technology and legal services in the case of copyright infringement as huge favors to the author, when they are really about protecting the income of the publisher. The "proper remuneration" remark is just stupid. All she is saying is that publishers are forcing higher prices for ebooks, which does not necessarily mean more income for the author, as a) he may well sell fewer books at those inflated prices, and b) most of the take goes to the publisher.
Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but sheesh, that article had the opportunity to come up with some viable arguments for using a publisher in the digital age, and instead, the points given were old, tired, and untrue. What a waste of digital space.
--Maria
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