Rating: 
Summary: The customer (reader) will decide ! ! !
Review: A very enjoyable,well written read. As with most things the reader will be the one who makes the decision on how the book business will go,not the authors, publishers or the booksellers.This has happened in most fields and the industry stalwarts have,with the best of intentions,tried to control the changes,or at least tried to keep up in their own way.However; the "tried,true and knowledgeable" have usually been swept aside by forces "outside" the industry.This has happened with all forms of marketing as evidenced by "box stores" ,restaurant chains,the cars we drive,the clothes we drive,the music we listen to,etc. The book industry is like any other where the "establishment knows what's best"and acts like the person whose preference for lunch is cavier,blue cheese and a glass of wine;opens a restaurant and offers it to his clients,gets very little business,seethes,looks on his potential customers as lowbrows when they disagree with his choice;and goes broke.In the meantime another decides to cater to his customers and offers soup,sandwich and "free" coffee and prospers.The diner decides! Like it or not it was the voters who put Schwarzenegger in power in California yesterday;not the political establishment, regardless of stripe.
Socialistic type control by the establishment with grants,in-house editions,best seller lists,establishment, as opposed to reader,awards,etc.remind me of the days when the franchise owners tried to use black-outs to force fans to their games.The fans will decide if they want to go to the stadium,what team they want to watch and how much they want to pay; the same with readers.Epstein seems like a good person and wants to do the right thing;he is part of the establishment and this is not going to be where the changes will originate;they will come from outside.Remember it was not from the large communication companies like A T & T that gave us the internet.
The restricted world of academics,authors,reviews and books he mentions is fine for the establishment but how come he doesn't seem to recognize Steinbeck,Hemmingway,McMurtry,Twain,Spillae,Westerns,Mitchener,Doonesbury,Romances,Sci-Fi,Mysteries,Biographies etc.or such novels as Uncle Tom's Cabin or Gone With the Wind? Are these not books in the mind of the writer? Is it only names like Proust,Camus,Cerf,Dupee,Nabakov etc.that are worthy of thinking as books? How many have read Gone With the Wind versus To the Finland Station ?
As to the local,knowledgeable Booksellers...one day I was in an old established,prestige,well known bookstore in Toronto by the name of Britnell's looking to see what they had in books on mathematical puzzles and recreations.I asked if they had a section on Games and Puzzles. I was smugly told to try a "toy store".Like TARA, they are now Gone With the Wind; and by the way the large chain stores always have such a section.
I have a personal library of about 6,000 titles,read between 120 and 150 books a year and have read very few of the the books reviews or authors mentioned in the book. Is it the attitude that if I dont read what the establishment thinks is important or good then I don't matter? If they believe this,they do so at their peril;the reader will decide.
Rating:
Summary: Glimpsing the Future of Books
Review: In book publishing since 1950, Jason Epstein knows firsthand the problems the industry has faced over the years and how recent technological advances are about to bring a much-needed change. And though this may seem boring on the surface, read on, for according to Epstein, the future of book publishing is about to change dramatically.No stranger to innovation, Epstein launched The New York Review of Books, and the Library of America, in addition to creating Doubleday's Anchor Books, the imprint that started the quality trade paperback revolution. Now he envisions another revolution, but he's not talking about electronic books (e-books). In the preface to Book Business, Epstein says, "Technologies change the world but human nature remains the same," which seems to sum up how most readers feel about e-books. You can't replicate the experience of curling up with a good book if you're glued to a computer screen or fumbling with a stack of loose-leaf printed pages. What he is talking about is print-on-demand (POD) publishing - technology that is capable of transferring book text electronically to book kiosks which will be able to print and bind a finished book, either in a central location or, eventually, in your own home. Joining Random House in 1958, when the company was housed in New York's Villard mansion, Epstein witnessed an exciting part of book publishing history. He recounts tales of W. H. Auden showing up unannounced "in torn overcoat and carpet slippers delivering the manuscript of The Dyer's Hand"; Theodore Geisel (Dr. Suess) "arriving with his storyboards to recite Green Eggs and Ham"; and Andy Warhol "bowing slightly and addressing me in a deferential whisper as Mr. Epstein, as if I were not someone in a torn sweater and corduroy trousers hardly older than he was...." Epstein elucidates a time in New York after the Second World War when the sounds of Johnny Mercer and Ella Fitzgerald could be heard at the Vanguard or Café Society and, if you had a few pennies, you could enjoy a beer while you were listening. But irregardless of the social opportunities it affords, Epstein asserts that publishing, by its nature, is not suited to becoming a commercially viable enterprise, and that attempts at making it so have oft led to disappointment, since the publishing paradigm includes allowing booksellers to return unsold stock for full credit. When he was at Doubleday, Epstein later learned, the company's treasurer was advising its owner to sell the business and invest the proceeds in government bonds, arguing that this would yield a greater profit. "The book business as I have known it," Epstein confesses, "is already obsolete." Meanwhile, the marketplace has come to be monopolized by superstores, whose accompanying high overhead costs require high turnover. The trouble started with the migration from cities to suburbs, since the only place booksellers could set up shop in the suburbs was in the malls, where high rent precludes the profitable operation of a retail business that requires a great deal of inventory with very little turnover. "When this phenomenon first became apparent some 30 years ago," Epstein quips, "the industry joke was that the shelf life of a book had fallen somewhere between milk and yogurt. Since then the situation has worsened...." Internet booksellers have attempted to bring these inconsistencies within line, but even their dismal profit performance shows continuing difficulty. The problem is that even in a warehouse, overhead rises with increased sales and profits never improve. Enter the "ATM for books," POD machines proficient at printing and binding any paperback book for the cost of a few dollars. They are already in use at book wholesaler Ingram, and other publishers and retailers. Smaller, less-costly versions of these machines are now in development, coming soon to a store (or library, or post office?) near you. One day you might have one attached to your computer as your conventional printer is now. In the meantime, many publishers are scurrying to digitize their backlists, although there is still controversy over whether they, or their authors, own electronic rights; while another hurdle to be overcome involves developing reliable encryption to prevent against copyright infringement. But imagine the possibilities: any book ever written available instantly, or the ability to create custom books with combinations of text from one or more authors, all from the comfort and convenience of your own home. Book Business is not only premonitory when it comes to the coming revolution in publishing - which makes it a compelling read - but well-written and conversational; the kind of book you don't want to end. If Epstein's predictions ring true, our world will almost assuredly be a different place for publishers, booksellers, authors, and readers alike. When it comes to considering the possibilities this technology brings, the mind boggles and I feel the urge to visit my local bookstore, this time spending a little more time, so I'll be able to tell my grandchildren what one looked like.
Rating: 
Summary: This is a memoir, not an analysis
Review: Jason Epstein has worked with many of the best writers of the twentieth century. He has helped revolutionize the American book market by introducing the quality trade paperback, the purchase of choice for today's avid readers. His "Book Business" was written amid the present publishing crisis, which has many precursors, including competition with other media. So why write this book now? This book is a memoir, a book created out of a series of three lectures that Mr. Epstein gave at the New York Public Library in 1999, where he discusses, more than anything else, his own background. He details one of the most all-encompasing career paths that were ever born in a world of books, from his beginnings with Random House, his more recent founding of the New York Review of Books, to his current endeavors to shake up the publishing industry. Some of it nostalgic, some historical, but all is stamped with a very biographical hand. This is not a book to read if you are looking for a historical analysis of the the book in the United States. Nor will it offer a deep understanding today's publishing world--in this regard it is an adequate overview. Book history is an actual academic discipline that has existed in Europe for decades and is just now becoming interesting to scholars in North America. In that sense, the subtitle, "Publishing Past Present and Future," is incredibly misleading, a supreme overstatement. What this book can give you is insight into the life of a man (and his wife), who has committed his life to books and continue to do so. Epstein is a man to admire, a true man of letters. Perhaps this book is merely a preface to Epstein's next endeavor, a book-machine that can spit out any text, anywhere on the face of the earth, in any language. Books become digitalized, small language groups will be preserved, no book will be out-of-print. E-books, digital screens instead of musty yellowed pages--the digitalization of literature already has many enemies. But whatever huge advance rocks the boat of the publishing world, Epstein is sure to be there at the helm, or perhaps even be the wave itself.
Rating:
Summary: Book Business Not As Usual
Review: Jason Epstein started in publishing fresh out of college at a time when the concept of Quality Paperback was still revolutionary. In this book he states it as obvious that new technology will force the big publishing firms to drastically change or disappear. Epstein welcomes the anticipated change. He shows how publishing is ideally suited to small firms. Indeed, the current fashion in business to outsource everything except the core competence was for a long time traditional in publishing. When Ford glorified the concept of doing everything inside his corporation except the digging up of the raw materials, it was traditional for publishers to operate out of a small office, outsourcing printing, binding, design, distribution and concentrating of acquisition, financing, and marketing. In the 1980s and 1990s when business in general was going back to core competences, publishing was going in the opposite direction, when book publishers got bought by media conglomerates, apparently lured by anticipated "synergies". Epstein fits in the world of small publishers, and suffered from the change that dominated his career. One interesting aspect of the book is Epstein's optimism about the Internet and the prospect of portable devices for downloading and displaying books. He sees it likely that this shifts the balance of power back to small publishers. Even more intriguingly, he notes how the Internet may even completely disintermediate the publisher by allowing authors and readers to find one another directly. An additional attraction for people like myself who are not in the book business, but are book junkies, is the glimpses into what it's like to be an editor. Epstein graduated from Columbia College where the idea of education was to read the One Hundred Great Books, started with Homer and ending in the 19th century. Anything later was still considered too dicey; not clear enough what was Great. Epstein took to it like a duck to water. Without this background, he would not have started Doubleday Anchor books, and even knowing about the existence of the One Hundred Great Books would still have been confined to a small elite. Why three rather than five stars? Epstein is articulate, but not a writer. That's not his career. Still the book is pleasant to read, and useful for the insights outlined above. Articulate non-writers with valuable insights should be encouraged.
Rating: 
Summary: What the Web Does to Old Fashioned Publishing!
Review: Like the hedgehog of legend, Jason Epstein in this book has one big idea: The Internet, he says, changes everything! All the rest of this book is commentary, memoir and historical anecdote recalled from a lifetime of experience in the hermetically sealed world of New York publishing. In fact, Mr. Epstein has written an interesting if only moderately useful book about the changes he has witnessed in the publishing arena, a book which, regrettably, does not offer much beyond an earlier essay he presented on-line about these same issues, although it is fleshed out here by the anecdotal descriptions of his personal experiences in the field. His basic thesis is that the publishing industry, by rights, ought to be a small scale business, but has grown, over time, into an unpromising corporate behemoth which cannot, in the end, sustain itself. However, the advent of the Internet should bring this chapter of the business to a resounding close, he suggests, as authors discover how to reach readers directly and, thereby, marginalize publishers. What, after all, do publishers do, he asks? They make books available to the public by investing in titles through a selection and editing process and then by financing the books' production (editing, layout/design, printing and binding), distribution (warehousing, linking with distributors and re-sellers) and promotion (advertising, networking with the review community and sales outreach to retailers). This is not very much, in the end, says Mr. Epstein, given the powers conferred upon authors through the Web. Thanks to modern e-publishing (on-line electronic publication and print-on-demand), authors can now do much of this themselves through on-line service providers at very minimal cost. The existence of on-line sales outlets such as amazon and bn.com (which have seen their share of book purchases grow from an early 1-2% to a more recently reported 6%) makes all this feasible since buyers cannot easily distinguish between self-published works which are well presented and their more commercially published cousins at the on-line sites. So, says Mr. Epstein, the business he has spent his life in is about to change radically . . . and for the better. Unfortunately, his own book does not go much beyond this basic point, aside from the interesting life experiences in the publishing world he has to recount. And so I was somewhat disappointed by it. I came to it hoping to learn more about the publishing business and how to circumvent it, having been a rejected author for the better part of my professional life. (In the interests of full disclosure I should say, at this point, that I am one of those "empowered" authors Mr. Epstein seems to be alluding to who has found an alternative to the closed world of "big" publishing through the exigencies of the Internet. Unable to place my first novel with a bona fide commercial publisher, I went the POD -- print-on-demand -- route to generally good reviews. But I have found that this means of publishing falls well-short of expectations as I still lack the means to connect with the big-time review community, which seems to have a prejudice against the self-published, or to promote my book on a scale which the traditional publishing world can offer.) So I was looking for more in Epstein's book, hoping to learn something I did not already know and gain insight into how I might parlay my foray into on-line based self-publishing into something bigger. But Epstein doesn't deliver that. Instead he offers only a few insights and generalities about changes in the offing. And yet, perhaps that's the best one can do, as this is a new and growing field and none of us can really foretell the future, not even a man of Mr. Epstein's substantial experience. At the least, I think his basic insight is correct, that the Internet does indeed alter the present landscape dramatically. Still, as noted, I was left a trifle disappointed at the book's end (which came rather quickly, as it's a very short book). Aside from learning a bit about Epstein's own contributions to publishing past, and seeing reiterated in words my own experiences with on-line publishing, and learning that Epstein doesn't hold out much hope for outfits like amazon either (he proposes, instead, that amazon become a broker to publishers and authors, taking a small fee for linking readers with the books they want, through a publishers' consortium, each time a sale is rung up), he doesn't have much that is new to tell us. And, if I may be picky for a moment, I was a little put off by the editing/proofing of the book which I expected more from, given its professional provenance. I counted at least three typos (including two "thats", a common enough error, and the use of the word "identify" when "identity" was meant, among them). Worse Mr. Epstein got his reference to Albert Payson Terhune wrong! Terhune was famous for his books about collie dogs but he did not write any Lassie books, contrary to what Mr. Epstein reports. That was a fellow named Knight. Terhune wrote LAD, A DOG and numerous subsequent works based on the generations of Lad. A one-note theme, to be sure, but he kept me reading in my youth and was probably the first writer to inspire me to try my own luck in the publishing arena. Unfortunately, I did not have the same good luck as he did in finding a publishing outlet, until the advent of the Internet which, as Mr. Epstein suggests, may well, and hopefully will, change everything. SWM
Rating:
Summary: A semi-optimistic perspective from a veteran bookmaker
Review: Publishing is a notoriously conservative, unprofitable, non-linear line of business. The most fascinating parts of Epstein's book are his accounts of how he did something a little differently ("thought outside the box," to use a current cliche) and helped create something truly innovative and worthwhile--like quality paperbacks (Anchor Books) and the Library of America (uniform editions of carefully edited American classics on acid-free paper). While this book is essentially an extended essay on where publishing is going (as publishing houses become lesser components in larger media companies, and author advances for the turner-outers of blockbuster titles sap publishers of their resources and makes them unwilling to take risks on more significant literary voices), there are some interesting portraits of key figures from publishing's past, such as Horace Liveright, Bennett Cerf, and Donald Klopfer. His key thesis, that the future of publishing lay in being able to obtain printed books on demand from ATM-like kiosks, is both hopeful and scary. It means that there will be no need for any title to ever go out of print, no matter how limited its audience. (Hopeful.) But will books produced in this manner be as satisfying to read, hold, and collect as any single title in the Library of America? (Scary.)
Rating:
Summary: Laudator tempores acti
Review: Similar in some ways to Diana Athill's "Stet" (in which Jason Epstein figures)lamenting the loss of good literature and little bookstores and gentlepersonly ways of doing business. Some fascinating anecdotes of writers and publishers.
Unlike Athill he sticks his neck out to forecast the future, which is fun because since this was published in January 2000 we've already had some chance to see which of his prophecies came true. Amazon.com is still in business, if you're reading this. The sales of e-books have been lamentable, except that some major big reference books are now on CDROM witn on-line updates (You can't buy a paper Encyclopedia Brittanica any more).
Rating:
Summary: Gone With The Card Catalog
Review: The preface of BOOK BUSINESS mentions the very origins of written language: cutting or "scoring" a mark onto a board. He notes that "scorekeepers still keep score on boards". He might also have added that the early scoring was the first expression of binary code, the language understood by the tiny chips that run the giant scoreboards at the Super Bowl, as well as every other scoreboard or "computer" on Earth. Epstein gives here a curious insider/outsider account of the book business over the last half century. He was decidedly inside when he began in the fifties, working with Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer to "publish" such legends as Nabokov and Faulkner. His anecdote of Nabokov is a gem. He runs into the author in the bar of the Paris Ritz in the early seventies. Nabokov, in a loud Hawaiian shirt and a loud Midwestern accent, raises a toast to Richard Nixon. Why Nixon? Because he believed Nixon would eventually triumph over the Viet Cong and that would lead, dominolike, to the fall of the Soviet Union, enabling him to return to his beloved homeland. By the eighties Epstein and his ilk are being overwhelmed by mass market forces. Chain bookstores seem to be taking over the industry and reducing drastically the numbers of titles available for sale (and by extension able to be published). The pressure of real estate costs at the malls steadily reduced the selection at bookstores to a handful of bestsellers, "whose faithful readers are addicted to their formulaic melodramas". Publishers who in Epstein's early years were like intellectual families had by the eighties been reduced to mere distributors and advertisers. Between 1986 and 1996, he relates, "63 of the 100 bestselling titles were written by a mere 6 writers". By way of hinting at what was to come, Epstein tells of meeting a man who in the 1950s described to Epstein in some detail...the Internet. Epstein liked and respected the man, Norbert Wiener, an engineering prof at MIT, but "dismissed this prophecy as science fiction". Courageously, Epstein admits his failure to take the prophecy seriously reflected "the limitations of my own worldview at the time and that of my intellectual friends who were increasingly absorbed in Cold War issues and felt that the fate of Western civilization depended upon the positions they took in their articles for Partisan Review or in their dinner party conversation". One sees the limitations of his worldview pop up again when he meets a man named Bezos, who is committed to changing the book business. After a fairly short time, Epstein pronounces Bezos to be "committed to an incorrect business model". But in spite of revealing himself to be a bit of a mossback, Epstein also gives what I found to be one of the most exhilerating glimpses anywhere of what technology can do for the book business: A kiosk, containing an "ATM machine for books". In it, an integrated set of computer, internet connection, laser printer, and binder. You put your money in, type onto a keyboard what text you want--anything from a transcript of the Nixon tapes to a copy of LOLITA to a handbook of Siberian butterflies--and the computer downloads it, the laser prints it, and the binder binds it. It doesn't matter if it's "out of print". That phrase is obsolescent. It doesn't matter if the book is banned. The newly printed and bound book will fall into a slot like a can of Coke. Your wait will be perhaps 5 minutes in 2005, falling to 5 seconds in 2010.
Rating:
Summary: Gone With The Card Catalog
Review: The preface of BOOK BUSINESS mentions the very origins of written language: cutting or "scoring" a mark onto a board. He notes that "scorekeepers still keep score on boards". He might also have added that the early scoring was the first expression of binary code, the language understood by the tiny chips that run the giant scoreboards at the Super Bowl, as well as every other scoreboard or "computer" on Earth. Epstein gives here a curious insider/outsider account of the book business over the last half century. He was decidedly inside when he began in the fifties, working with Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer to "publish" such legends as Nabokov and Faulkner. His anecdote of Nabokov is a gem. He runs into the author in the bar of the Paris Ritz in the early seventies. Nabokov, in a loud Hawaiian shirt and a loud Midwestern accent, raises a toast to Richard Nixon. Why Nixon? Because he believed Nixon would eventually triumph over the Viet Cong and that would lead, dominolike, to the fall of the Soviet Union, enabling him to return to his beloved homeland. By the eighties Epstein and his ilk are being overwhelmed by mass market forces. Chain bookstores seem to be taking over the industry and reducing drastically the numbers of titles available for sale (and by extension able to be published). The pressure of real estate costs at the malls steadily reduced the selection at bookstores to a handful of bestsellers, "whose faithful readers are addicted to their formulaic melodramas". Publishers who in Epstein's early years were like intellectual families had by the eighties been reduced to mere distributors and advertisers. Between 1986 and 1996, he relates, "63 of the 100 bestselling titles were written by a mere 6 writers". By way of hinting at what was to come, Epstein tells of meeting a man who in the 1950s described to Epstein in some detail...the Internet. Epstein liked and respected the man, Norbert Wiener, an engineering prof at MIT, but "dismissed this prophecy as science fiction". Courageously, Epstein admits his failure to take the prophecy seriously reflected "the limitations of my own worldview at the time and that of my intellectual friends who were increasingly absorbed in Cold War issues and felt that the fate of Western civilization depended upon the positions they took in their articles for Partisan Review or in their dinner party conversation". One sees the limitations of his worldview pop up again when he meets a man named Bezos, who is committed to changing the book business. After a fairly short time, Epstein pronounces Bezos to be "committed to an incorrect business model". But in spite of revealing himself to be a bit of a mossback, Epstein also gives what I found to be one of the most exhilerating glimpses anywhere of what technology can do for the book business: A kiosk, containing an "ATM machine for books". In it, an integrated set of computer, internet connection, laser printer, and binder. You put your money in, type onto a keyboard what text you want--anything from a transcript of the Nixon tapes to a copy of LOLITA to a handbook of Siberian butterflies--and the computer downloads it, the laser prints it, and the binder binds it. It doesn't matter if it's "out of print". That phrase is obsolescent. It doesn't matter if the book is banned. The newly printed and bound book will fall into a slot like a can of Coke. Your wait will be perhaps 5 minutes in 2005, falling to 5 seconds in 2010.
Rating:
Summary: An intresting journey into the history of book publishing
Review: The world of book publishing and all of its adjunct business like book superstores, are an interesting yet hidden mystery. (Or at least I feel that way) The author takes through the journey of publishing and his life, which are tightly intertwined. He starts with the early and maybe exciting years of publishing in the 50's -60's to the movement of paperbacks to quality and outside the drug store. Along the way he also shares with us his prospective on the current book publishing/selling/writing situation around us. While I don't want to say much about this part, he doesn't paint a good picture of the overall situation. But then after describing the current situation he takes to his idea, vision, and hope for the future of publishing were authors would sell directly to readers. This is a fun and educational book to read for any book lover. I high recommend it to everyone.
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