Nobody's making any money. I suspect that the future of publishing will leave the field open for other kinds of publishing that won't be so corporate. To top it off, McGrath said that some of the larger chain stores expect books to perform like blockbuster movies. A book opens and if it doesn't happen in a couple of weeks they bundle it up and ship it back. The great dilemma facing publishers and all of you, he said, is getting the news out about books in an environment where there is so much else competing for our attention.
Book reviews are one way of getting the news out.
Since McGrath took over at the Book Review, he has paid more attention to commercial fiction, arguing that commercial fiction tells us about ourselves. He has also made it his first priority to improve the level of writing. He said the easiest way to get a good review is by getting opposites to review one another, like having Gore Vidal reviewing Norman Mailer. A book review ought to be a lively, entertaining, stylish, self-sufficient piece on its own. Radcliffe Publishing Course Director Lindy Hess said that the program has changed as drastically in recent years as the publishing and book-selling industries.