One: For The Stranger, Paul Constant reports from Book Expo America. Perhaps the key point he makes, in terms of debate-sparking-ness:
If nobody can afford to publish John Grisham, that doesn’t mean that Grisham’s readers are suddenly going to pick up a quality literary novel by, say, Dave Eggers or Stephen Elliott. It just means they’re not going to read anymore. And when the number of people reading decreases at the top of the mass-reading market—the Twilight and Stephen King readers—there will be fewer people filtering down to the serious literary experience, and the idea of reading printed books will be a tiny boutique experience, not unlike collecting vinyl.
Two: One aspect of the trickle-down process filtered above was covered recently by Dan Wickett at the Emerging Writers Network blog.
Three: So New Publishing’s James Stegall reports from Pilcrow Lit Fest. And one of the fine points he makes, in a piece abounding with them:
One of the tragedies of last year was the loss of Impetus Press — all it took was a reorganization at their distributor, which resulted in distribution charges they couldn’t pay. Hope won’t run a business.
The Constant and Stegall pieces are, I’d say, deeply relevant to one another, and point to an uncomfortable fact: while there are definitely impressive and vital things happening via independent presses, much of the larger structure by which books are sold seems to be interconnected with the fortunes of entities larger than those presses, whether distributors or larger publishing houses. Which begs the question: is there a place for an alternative structure (or alternative institutions) to arise? And if so, what would/should they look like?