The program enables them to order books from a variety of publishers from a single source, and offers them a strong discount schedule, free freight on orders of a specified number, and next-day delivery. What this means is that so many of the small, independent publishers who are unable to afford costly marketing efforts and thus have relied on their distributors' sales representatives to make the bookstores aware of the new season's books will no longer be represented in these stores. The visibility of independent publishers in chain stores is already minimal since, in addition to going through the VOR program, all buying for the entire chain is done at one central location. This can only lead to a further distintegration of the market for literature. For two thousand years, literature has carried the ideas and cultures of our world.
Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.
Poised at the brink of a new millenium, our horizons continue to expand, opening vast new possibilities for making magic. The fall of communism and new economic agreements with former political enemies has allowed us access to previously inaccessible cultures here in our world. The Internet has put the cyber-world at our fingertips. The space program has taken aim at Mars and the secrets of the universe. The implications for literature in this country are staggering.