Was: record industry is becoming the book business

[Tim Kugel <guitardo@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, long time but still lurking. This from long while back....I have been away.

I asked my girlfriend to read the article to me.  Her take: the hawking of sex is the major difference. The book business has changed enormously too, with the paperback, for example (ruinous, great for business).  I was in the book biz 20 years ago, and the talk then was of
capitulation.

The fact is, Hemingway did bend over. Pocket Books did lurid "Real World" stuff. Marketing to kids. The average 30 year old woman, an industry in 2001 survey showed,  bought her last CD using as her number one influence: "Behind the Music."

Seriously, folks.  That is a big segment of buyers.

People who buy products may be intending to "display." The coffee table book/CD/DVD.

When the book business in America was in Cincinnati and Boston, the explosion of popular novels (mainly bad historical romances) brought, along with evangelism, Mormonism. Bowie would have been proud.

How many of you have or would buy a CD at the airport?

What type of CD would you buy in an airport?

What is a good "Summer CD" (I have read that list here once, I thinkl).

Would you throw the CD away like a paperback if it cost 4 dollars?  Sure you would.  OK NOT ALL OF YOU!!

But the book business is still decomposing. And now the American reader reads one sixth of the Italian or Dutch reader. Face it, we read less than almost everybody.  Maybe we're all listening.
-Tim

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