State of the Industry

As the bookselling and publishing industries meets in Chicago for the annual BookExpo America summit its a good time to observe just how whacky the book business has become. There will be many unusual topics characters and theories unveiled during BEA an event that each year makes me feel like Ive run away to join the circus. Bill Clinton will kick off the festivities this year hawking his new book in the wake of the recent quip by G.W. Bush about how good his administration has been for the publishing business.

There isnt much else to rejoice about right now. Is there anyone out there -- besides Dan Brown and Jeff Bezos -- who isnt complaining? Booksellers want lower-priced books large and small publishers battle for shelf space and the losers complain about poor sales and high returns. You may have seen the Salon.com article Confessions of a Semi-Successful Author by "Jane Austen Doe" lamenting the losses shes suffered during her career as a mid-list author: personal relationships money the conviction that love art & business can be mixed and most of all the loss of hope. You know its bad when authors lose hope that magic can still occur in literature.

On the upside religious book publishing and low-carb cookbooks are HOT - maybe that accounts for the latest take on the question What Would Jesus Eat? Clark Heinrich author of Magic Mushrooms In Religion And Alchemy (Park Street Press) speculates that when Christ said Eat this bread this is my body he was referring to the hallucinogenic Amanita Muscaria or fly agaric mushroom that when soaked in water feels just like human flesh. Heinrich also points out that urinating after eating the mushrooms yields a reddish liquid that one could say turns water into a kind of wine…

Jim Barnes: Independent Publisher  Contact him at editor@independentpublisher.com