I completely lost my marbles. A change in subscription was dead easy, and I stayed on a different payment plan - my apologies. (The contacts do need revision.)
I didn’t really want to get into this, but since I still did not hear from anyone, I’ll say that while the content of this Substack is excellent, as are many, the Substack technology is malignant. The negative option renewal is a snare. But yes, here, the lack of response from the office of a thriving publisher and their inoperative emails are surprising. What’s happening now is that we are building our own private magazines, but the accumulated cost for the group of columns is getting crazy.
Good stuff, as always. Here’s another news flash for the future. Much non-fiction video content on YouTube is increasingly AI-generated, narrated and illustrated. Particularly, anything historical. Most of what I’ve viewed is no-budget, minimum effort trash, yet there are thousands of these inaccurate productions that will be consumed as fact by viewers. No curation or consequences from the digital platforms.
Another wonderful article. A serious, sobering, but not discouraging reflection on the state of affairs in non-fiction publishing. Very insightful and useful. Thank you Kenneth.
"But here’s the thing. Podcasts are hardly the first medium to treat books this way, and they’re nevertheless a boon to the book world. For most of the century before podcasting, magazines were strip mining book content."
^^ I never viewed magazines through this lens. But many were Coles / CliffsNotes style talking points from books. ^^
Sorry to do this, but could someone get back to me about a subscription issue? None of the contact emails are working for me. You have my email address.
I'd be curious to know what percentage of major publishers' nonfiction lists today are authored by even moderately conservative authors. If it's as low as I imagine, it would be worth asking whether underserving half the potential nonfiction readership has something to do with faltering nonfiction sales.
If school librarians are ever so concerned about censorship, they might want to rationally assess their own shelves. See if conservative viewpoints, both fiction and nonfiction, are as well represented as liberal viewpoints.
A very good point, RI, but, really, I mean really - do you have any expectation that those folk would a) recognize such a lack in their coverage; and b) even if the did recognize the gap would they actually take steps to address said gap?
Such people are slaves to group think. If enough of them get influenced enough to really think about any of their beliefs, it's entirely possible they might become reacquainted with reality. And once a few do, the rest might follow suit, because they will still engage in group think.
I completely lost my marbles. A change in subscription was dead easy, and I stayed on a different payment plan - my apologies. (The contacts do need revision.)
I didn’t really want to get into this, but since I still did not hear from anyone, I’ll say that while the content of this Substack is excellent, as are many, the Substack technology is malignant. The negative option renewal is a snare. But yes, here, the lack of response from the office of a thriving publisher and their inoperative emails are surprising. What’s happening now is that we are building our own private magazines, but the accumulated cost for the group of columns is getting crazy.
David - we don’t run substack. The e-commerce operations is there’s. You have to contact them.
Good stuff, as always. Here’s another news flash for the future. Much non-fiction video content on YouTube is increasingly AI-generated, narrated and illustrated. Particularly, anything historical. Most of what I’ve viewed is no-budget, minimum effort trash, yet there are thousands of these inaccurate productions that will be consumed as fact by viewers. No curation or consequences from the digital platforms.
Another wonderful article. A serious, sobering, but not discouraging reflection on the state of affairs in non-fiction publishing. Very insightful and useful. Thank you Kenneth.
"But here’s the thing. Podcasts are hardly the first medium to treat books this way, and they’re nevertheless a boon to the book world. For most of the century before podcasting, magazines were strip mining book content."
^^ I never viewed magazines through this lens. But many were Coles / CliffsNotes style talking points from books. ^^
Thank you.
Sorry to do this, but could someone get back to me about a subscription issue? None of the contact emails are working for me. You have my email address.
I have the same problem. No one is responding to my emails, sent to different Sutherland addresses.
BTW, the Stursberg book is excellent!
I'd be curious to know what percentage of major publishers' nonfiction lists today are authored by even moderately conservative authors. If it's as low as I imagine, it would be worth asking whether underserving half the potential nonfiction readership has something to do with faltering nonfiction sales.
Amen.
If school librarians are ever so concerned about censorship, they might want to rationally assess their own shelves. See if conservative viewpoints, both fiction and nonfiction, are as well represented as liberal viewpoints.
A very good point, RI, but, really, I mean really - do you have any expectation that those folk would a) recognize such a lack in their coverage; and b) even if the did recognize the gap would they actually take steps to address said gap?
Such people are slaves to group think. If enough of them get influenced enough to really think about any of their beliefs, it's entirely possible they might become reacquainted with reality. And once a few do, the rest might follow suit, because they will still engage in group think.