First Five Pages and Book Business

I read Chapter 2 of the The First Five Pages last week so it is not the freshest in my mind but I remember finding it more useful than the previous one. The example paragraphs however, way over did it. I can't imagine anyone writing like that, even the worst writer ever. I know he was exaggerating to prove a point, but I think just by reading the chapter, which explained what you were supposed to be on the look out for, one could figure out how to edit in such a situation.

Moving on to Book Business, I have to agree with Peter, I don't really find this book enjoyable at all, in fact I am struggling to stay with it. I have read Chapters 1 and 2 and I was hoping to read more but guess what, at the beginning of Chapter 3, I fell asleep. I hate Epstein's tone and his explanations of the publishing industry are a bit confusing to me, someone who knows nothing whatsoever about it, past, present, or future. While I think it is great that he intersperses experiences he's had throughout his career with the information about the industry, when he begins to talk about the structure of the business it feels boring and redundant. I feel like all he keeps saying is the publishing industry changed in the 1920's, then it changed again when my generation took over, now it's changing again...well we get that. It is an industry that constantly seems to be in transition. Is it unnatural for it to evolve? He makes a big deal out of this like it is a problem, and maybe I just don't understand enough about it to see his point. I did like the little image he creates about the original Random House building and the difference between how editors would relate to their writers then as opposed to how things operate today. The times when he is relaying personal stories I find him to be the most likable. I realize I said something similar about On Writing but the difference is while I enjoyed King's personal stories the most, I didn't dislike the rest of what he was saying, and I could consistently hear his voice throughout the work. With Book Business, Epstein becomes a boring, dry, could be anyone sort of character when he is not talking about himself. I will give this book the benefit of the doubt, but thus far I'm not impressed.

I also wanted to comment on two other things that have irked me. One, I think the book atm thing is so stupid, I don't see it being part of the future of publishing at all. I know he mentions at one point people may even have them in their homes...I highly doubt it. It seems like a paradox to say that both book atms and e-books will be major innovations that change publishing...if people are so excited to transition to digital words, why would they want a machine that would make actual books for them? This connects with my second thought- how accurate/relevant is this book if it was originally written in 1999? Epstein himself goes on and on about the industry rapidly changing, well a lot must have changed in the 10 years since he wrote it. Yet we aren't all downloading e-books and/or ordering them up from our personal atms. So I would be interested to hear maybe after finishing this book from someone who is up to date on the status of the publishing industry what it is really like today.