Davos Newbies

What’s the fuss

I don’t understand the fuss authors are making about Amazon.com’s growing used book sales. Apparently nearly new books are a booming part of Amazon.com’s business, and authors, of course, don’t receive royalties from the secondary market in their work.

There have been attempts in other markets (France tried it in fine art) to ensure creators get paid from secondary sales. And in the UK, there is a public lending right system where authors receive payments for library lending of their works. But it seems short-sighted for authors to kvetch at any book sales, whether new or used. If people want to buy once- or never-read copies of books, they will do so. Impeding Amazon.com is irrelevant.

Personally, as an incurable bibliomane, I’ll continue buying new books new and old books old. For some reason nearly new books hold little appeal to me.  

Michael Smolens, who has been trying for some time now to deal with the archaisms of the publishing industry, writes that the reaction against Amazon.com is utterly typical of the hidebound world of authors and publishers.

What’s the fuss

I don’t understand the fuss authors are making about Amazon.com’s growing used book sales. Apparently nearly new books are a booming part of Amazon.com’s business, and authors, of course, don’t receive royalties from the secondary market in their work.

There have been attempts in other markets (France tried it in fine art) to ensure creators get paid from secondary sales. And in the UK, there is a public lending right system where authors receive payments for library lending of their works. But it seems short-sighted for authors to kvetch at any book sales, whether new or used. If people want to buy once- or never-read copies of books, they will do so. Impeding Amazon.com is irrelevant.

Personally, as an incurable bibliomane, I’ll continue buying new books new and old books old. For some reason nearly new books hold little appeal to me.  

Power of explanation

I was speaking to a scientist yesterday who explained he can measure certain chemical reactions with a femtosecond delay, which is getting pretty close to real time. “What’s a femtosecond?” someone asked. Most scientists would have answered 10^-15 seconds. Instead, this eloquent scientist said, “One second is the time it takes for light to travel from the moon to the earth. A femtosecond is the time it takes for light to travel the width of a human hair.”

It’s not unusual

The Financial Times has an in-depth look at the corporate culture of Enron, apparently known as the crooked E to its one-time employees. The FT reports a lot of unattractive practices, but I was struck more by how typical much of it sounded.

Certainly Enron pushed the boundaries of acceptability more than most. But consider its Performance Review Committee, which the FT looks at in detail. Managers were required to rate their employees on a scale from one to five. Those receiving fives (and the company had a bell curve to ensure a healthy number received the bottom mark) lost their jobs. Isn’t that just what the much-lauded Jack Welch thinks every company should do?

Enron employees were judged overwhelmingly on their revenue-getting ability, rather than on the alleged core values of “respect, integrity, communication and excellence”. Whatever the rhetoric about corporate values and mission statements, I’d guess that the bulk of companies in the western world (not just the US) judge preponderantly on what their employees bring to the bottom line.

The FT also gets exercised by the extent of sports gambling that was part of the Enron culture. Again, particularly a week after the conclusion of the NCAA basketball tournament, that doesn’t sound atypical.

I don’t advocate any of these practices, and Enron does seem to have been, in the FT’s words, “rotten to the core”. But the message I take from the paper’s investigation is how close to rotten many corporate cultures are today.

Back in harness

I’ve just returned from two weeks, mostly skiing in the Sierra Nevada. So I hope my mind is cleansed and ready to confront an increasingly ugly world situation. The times aren’t great for optimists.

Incidentally, it’s a commonplace in certain European circles to say that no dissent can be broached in the US. That’s utter nonsense. One straw in the wind that delighted me last week was the most prominent book display at the Hudson’s Book Corner in the American Airlines terminal at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. In the centre, Jack Welch’s vapid Jack: Straight from the Gut. Framing it on both sides was Michael Moore’s Stupid White Men. I mentioned it to the woman at the till, who lit up in delight. “You’re the first person to notice,” she said. Alternative views are there, if you know where to look.