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Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Are you asking me why they sell poetry? If so, I have no idea. I'd guess it's because they've found readers who want to buy poetry, no?
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No. It is because the founding editors liked poetry, and then hired successors who also liked it:
http://www.pw.org/content/agents_edi...nathan_galassi
They couldn't continue to do this unless, most years, Farrar, Straus and Giroux made money for the parent Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. But if your somewhat cynical last paragraph in #77* was completely accurate, I don't think they would be publishing much poetry.
By the way, I don't like poetry. My point isn't that we need Amazon-unlike publishers for poetry per-se, but that the publishers are needed for almost every genre except, maybe, novels.
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Are they in a battle with Amazon over something?
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Periodically, at contract renewals, yes. Amazon did remove their buy buttons (because Farrar, Straus and Giroux is under MacMillan) for a while in 2010. The bigger issue is whether the likes of Farrar, Straus and Giroux will lower themselves to the Amazon level where all that matters is money, power, and market share. You seem to think they are there already. From where I read, they are not.
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Are you under the impression that only books you desire and respect should to be sold/bought?
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Of course not.
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Is it not enough that you already have more books available (that DO meet your exacting criteria) than you can possibly read in your lifetime?
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To me, my criteria aren't exacting. Spelling and punctuation errors don't bother me. I do want to see new good books published because, over time, new topics I would like to read about arise.
I again suggest searching
www.amazon.com/books for "ebola." Do you really believe that the difference seen there between nonfiction released by the care-only-about-money-power-market-share publisher, and what is released by the big five, is only noticeable by someone with exacting criteria? If so, we disagree. I plead guilty to wanting to be able to read books on medical topics written by actual experts and heavily edited by a professional team.
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Amazon didn't introduce the "crap I don't want to read" concept. There's been "crap I don't want to read" published for centuries.
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Agreed. But Amazon is -- not purposely, but as a side-effect of gaining market domination -- trying to push competing publishers down to that level.
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* "They are corporate entities at odds for control of how money gets made by the sale/promotion of commodities. Period."