The San Diego Union Tribune’s books editor, Arthur Salm, doesn’t quite get on the righteous indignation bandwagon, but he does get quite passionate about things he’d like to see happen (even if it’s pretty damn unlikely) in publishing this year:
Front-of-the-store awareness: Consumers become hip to the unpleasant fact that many of the books prominently displayed in the front of bookstores are there because publishers pay for favorable positioning. Book folk then act accordingly: They march disdainfully past these displays, then break stride and fall into the true cadence of the proper bookstore customer – aimless, stop-and-start wandering. Suggestion: Some stores mark books “Employee’s Choice.” Move these books to the front. Give them their own tables. Put them on the stand-up cardboard displays the publishers have helpfully provided for their subsidized twaddle.
Now, maybe my own level of semi-indignation has been helped along by watching old Crossfire reruns featuring Frank Zappa talk about censorship, but decrying co-op as evil is pretty silly when the effect is pronounced for some books and negligible for some. Never mind that plenty of bookstore folk get the co-op placements and do what they want anyway. Not to sound all Rockford, but what are people gettin’ so excited about here?