Smackdown of the day

[yendi]

Australian bookstore conglomerate Angus and Robertson attempts to extort publishers, and gets one hell of a public smackdown as a result. Read it, folks. Rakusin's response is a thing of beauty. Bonus points (to this Red Dwarf fan, at least), for the asshole here being named Rimmer.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden has more on this over at Making Light.

Comments

[fmh.livejournal.com]

Wow. That was brilliant.
If you read the combination of letter and comments it sounds like this A&R are on their way out, having 'managed' themselves right into the ground.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I've not read the article yet, but to put it bluntly: A&R suck. If you want books, you go to Borders or similar massive chains with wide-ranging selections. If you want specific, specialised books, you head to Pulp Fiction or Galaxy or the other 'genre fiction' superstores. Or Abbeys, which specialises in languages and non fiction. Etc.

A&R is a dying breed, the chain bookstore that has a selection worse than many personal libraries. Their businesses are failing as people drive/walk the extra half an hour to get to a Borders or even a decent second hand store.

When I heard of their blackmail scheme, I laughed and laughed. I can't even see why the publishers are worried, given that A&R would still need to persuade people to actually, y'know, come into the store before they can start making money again.

Two Australian cents.

[ckd]

I can smell the smoke from Angus and Robertson's burning bridges from here.

[28bytes.livejournal.com]

That first letter reads like something Ignatius wrote to the Levy Pants supplier.

[themaskmaker.livejournal.com]

Has LJ been taking lessons from A&R?