Meanwhile, Where Capitalism and Literature Collide

[omorka]

Apparently, there's been a bit of a brouhaha over a bookseller in Australia attempting Mal-Wart-like tactics on its publishers, and one publisher's bold and humorous reply on where, how far, and how hard to stick it. I think the Spouse may find this particularly amusing. Honestly, when people believe in "marketing" to the extreme of forgetting about their product, and the peculiarities that make it something a particular audience wants to spend money on, you know they're practicing capitalism as a religious sect, rather than an actual, like, market.

There's an old hacker's joke in comment #75 that I'd previously forgotten, too. (Edit: and an ideal-vs-applied math koan in #80)

Comments

[shefsatyr.livejournal.com]

That was interesting. I think the thing most everyone missed about the whole exchange, was the the bookseller has recently converted to SAP. That pretty much explains the situation to me. SAP will sap your company in no time. And any company that actually buys SAP shows that the accountants have taken over and you can expect unrealistic company policies "because they look good on paper" from that point on until the accountants jump the sinking ship to infest some other poor unsuspecting company and start the cycle over again.