Gene Therapy
Epstein also made the point that “Book publishing is not a conventional business. It more closely resembles a vocation or an amateur sport in which the primary goal is the activity itself rather than its financial outcome.”
To many today, this would be considered a prosaic and old-fashioned dream that went out with the era of “gentlemen publishers” 50 years ago. (Thankfully we now have plenty of “lady publishers.” How gentle they are can be the subject of an essay in another venue.) Certainly, this would not appear to describe Hachette, HarperCollins, Random House or Wiley, who provided some of the innovative case studies in the report.
Eugene G. Schwartz is editor at large for ForeWord Reviews, an industry observer and an occasional columnist for Book Business magazine. In an earlier career, he was in the printing business and held production management positions at Random House, Prentice-Hall/Goodyear and CRM Books/Psychology Today. A former PMA (IBPA) board member, he has headed his own publishing consultancy, Consortium House. He is also Co-Founder of Worthy Shorts Inc., a development stage online private press and publication service for professionals as well as an online back office publication service for publishers and associations. He is on the Publishing Business Conference and Expo Advisory Board.