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Tuesday, January 6, 2009

How bizarre can huge book advances be in hard economic times?

In today's Wall Street Journal, a story by Anita Elberse, "Blockbuster or Bust - Why struggling publishers will keep placing outrageous bids on new books," describes how publishers continue to fall back on their old business model of paying large advances for blockbusters, even in these difficult economic times.

Says Richard Spilman, of OldSaltBlog, "It brought to mind the cliché about generals that are always preparing to fight the last war. That is exactly what the publishing industry seems to be doing now."

Read the rest of his pungent and very interesting commentary in Huffington Post.

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