Today’s big literary news is NOT the announcement of this year’s Pulitzer winners, but the fact that all the major winners were published by companies owned by media giant Bertelsmann (as reported in Quill and Quire). It’s hard to know how to interpret this fact. On the one hand, it might suggest that Bertelsmann people have a nose for a good writing. On the other hand, it might suggest a degree of influence that threatens the long-term health of American letters.
Could it be that, in the long run, a more tightly consolidated publishing industry will produce a correspondingly consolidated range of voices? Consolidated range of expectations? Conventions? Literary imagination?
What does this forebode for the relative valuation of roles within big media publishing? For example, how will compensation differ amongst the following groups:
• authors
• designers
• marketers
• editors
• managers
• company directors
• shareholders
Do authors even belong in this list?
Will Bertelsmann think of its outputs as: Art? Craft? Product? Commodity? Units?
This much we know for certain: Bertelsmann products have been climbing to the top of Amazon’s sales list. Gotta keep moving those units.