Jeff:
>Should we blame the authors for poor marketing? Or blame the market
>for demanding trash? Or blame economics for putting profit before
>principles?
To blame or not to blame is not the question. Establishing blame is a
judgement game and offers no positive movement. Few authors are good
marketers. The market is the masses, who gorge on trash as a child gorges
on candy. Economics today is the science and art of making profit,
principles be dammed. These are not rights or wrongs, they are realities of
humaness.
Like it or not, and most don't, authors are responsible for book sales.
Which is why truly wonderful books often disappear with hardly a notice or
suffer abysmal sales. Only through persistent lucidity and eloquence do
writers such as Wendell Berry find substantial audience.
