Richard Laermer--In Your Face On Dead Publishing

Media guy Richard Laermer (author of 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade) pulls no punches at Huffington in his interesting article: Why Book Publishing is Dead (Part One).  Totally worth the read.  Here's a list of questions he attempts to answer:

1) Who's in charge?  How can a 22-year-old editor bid on a book?  What does a post-graduate $32,000-a-year fresh-out know what will hit with the public?

2) How do you expect people to pay 25 dollars for a book?

3) The editing is done exactly how far in advance?

4) Marketing is something that happens when?

5) You give nothing away?

6) Bookstore chains are difficult corporations?

7) Why is everyone so afraid to make waves?

8) You won't publish me even if I'm the next Tolstoy unless I have a platform of my own?

9) What about the number of works?

10) The agents are working for exactly whom?

11) What's with all the corporate titles people are given?

12) Small publishers? Nah, don't think so.

13) Shouldn't everything be made available online?

Unfortch, the questions are better than the answers.