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Stonetools' comment a few pages ago about us not caring about those poor publishers still rankles. Something to consider, Stonetools (and yes, we do still think you work for Apple ... anyone remember what company pushed to create the "agency model" in the first place?):
When you buy an ebook instead of a pbook, you're being horribly callous about...
Lumberjacks felling trees for pulp wood.
Employees of paper mills making paper out of those logs.
Truck drivers hauling logs to mills, paper to printers, books to stores, etc.
Railroads and all their employees doing likewise.
Pressmen and all their colleagues at printing companies.
Brick-and-mortar bookstore employees.
All the people in auxiliary industries, such as the ones who make ink for printers, sell sandwiches to store clerks, etc.
Clearly, proper respect for everyone who toils to bring you your book should include not buying ebooks at all, so that you can properly support the hundreds of people from the nursery worker who sprouts the seed that will become the tree your paper came from to the store clerk who puts the finished book in a bag and hands it across the counter. How dare you not care about all of them, and all of their jobs? They're important, you know! And you're admitting you don't care about any of them, and just want a book?
Sounds kind of ridiculous, doesn't it? It's just as ridiculous for the average person (that is, someone not employed in the publishing industry) to care about publishers. Authors, sure -- we pay attention to them because they write our books, and their names are on the covers in big letters. But if some change in business structure or strategy causes, say, "management executives" at Random House to become unnecessary, nobody cares any more than we care about the people who used to sell ink to Random House's printer. We just want to read a book. Sink or swim. If there's no further need for printer's ink -- or whatever middle managers actually do -- such is life, and it's time to look into some other line of work.
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