For nearly four decades, literary agent Richard Curtis has irregularly chronicled the state of publishing in verse through masterly Hudibrastics that slyly limn industry trends and transformations, from corporate consolidation and e-books to Twilight and Twitter. In his inaugural, which ran in Publishers Weekly in 1985, he spoofed the apparent game of “musical chairs” playing out among the top brass at the most powerful publishing houses, while a later—and rather prescient—installment from 2007 observed publishers increasingly turning their authors into “brands.”
In honor of the conclusion of this beloved tradition—and Curtis’s final yearend poem, which casts a knowing glance at the two biggest publishing news stories of 2024, the rise of book bans and generative AI—we’ve reshared all of the installments published in PW throughout the years, pairing them with complementary gems from our archives.
1985: Musical Chairs
The new year took off like a rocket
When Jack Romanos jumped to Pocket.
To the office he vacated
Linda Grey was elevated.
Rena Wolner Jack then chose,
Thus a gap at Berkley ‘rose.
Peter Israel moved to fill it,
Offering David Shanks the billet.
Loath to be a party pooper,
Shanks promoted Roger Cooper.
Not content with all this trauma,
Jack gave Irwyn Applebaum a
Job. Now mail sent to Stephen Rubin
Would be routed to a new bin,
Rubin moving up a space
To settle into Irwyn’s place
At Bantam, leaving there a void.
Bantam brass therefore deployed
(Ere this state of flux grew chronic) a
Sharp exec named Lou Aronica.
Next, to our profound dismay,
Two months almost to the day,
Wolner quit her Pocket post,
Triggering temblors coast to coast.
Scarcely had our heads ceased shaking,
Hearst announced that it was making
Rena Wolner Avon’s prez.
Walter Meade, Hearst’s spokesman says,
In order to complete the loop
Joined the Hearst Books Business Group.
As if the waters were not muddy,
Avon then released Page Cuddy.
Susanne Jaffe, chief of Pinnacle,
Peered into her compass binnacle.
Avonwards she set her course,
Her own firm gone from bad to worse.
Meanwhile, at the house of Warner,
Nansey Neiman got a corner
Office, her boss hied to Random
After Newhouse sought to land him.
Richard Marek of St. Martin,
Desirous of taking part in
Churning up the status quo,
To E.P. Dutton took his show.
And when room opened at the Guild,
By Gene Young the slot was filled.
Doubleday got in the act
When William Morrow inked a pact
With Lisa Drew, and Kate Medina
To Random walked, then Dick Malina
One November morn did wake up
Atop the heap after the shakeup.
Setting aside poetic levity,
Is there no virtue in longevity,
No pride in editorial tenure?
Your creed is, Here today and then you’re
Gone tomorrow. Well, I guess
You have to eat. But what a mess
You leave in your departure’s wake!
A heartfelt plea, then, I must make:
Friend, if you contemplate a switch,
Pause before you scratch that itch.
For damaged authors shed a tear.
For jobs are cheap — but books are dear.
1986: Merger, He Wrote
Last autumn, while their Mets amazed us,
Doubleday completely fazed us.
The firm’s intrepid admiral, Nelson,
Ignored Dad’s warning: “Never sell, son.”
Learning that he sought a buyer,
Several firms essayed a flyer.
But the wealthy Menn of Bertels
Came on like a herd of turtles,
Snapped the house up in their bill
For just about five hundred mil.
Meanwhile, Penguin’s Peter Mayer
Became a major hard-soft player.
Rallying his Viking Norsemen
(After asking his of-course men),
Mayer bid for NAL.
The owners were disposed to sell,
For splendid profit them awaited
When these behemoths were mated.
With tax-law changes ‘round the bend,
Other houses joined the trend.
CBS unloaded Holt:
To Harcourt Brace the firm was solt.
And, glasses raised in loud “L’Chaim!”,
Scott Foresman joined the march of Time.
More turbulence: Congdon & Weed,
Atlantic Monthly Press, Dodd, Mead.
Thus in frenzied syncopation
Proceeds the trade’s consolidation.
Scores of famous names of yore
Have since succumbed to corporate war
Or publish books with but a semblance
Of their former independence:
Coward, Crowell, Playboy, Grosset,
Dutton, Scribner, Morrow, Fawcett,
Prentice-Hall and Dial and Dell,
Random, Bantam, NAL,
Lothrop, John Day, Quick Fox, Jove,
Lippincott, Pop Libe, and Grove,
Bobbs and World and Atheneum . . .
Destined for the mausoleum.
Huge conglomerates expanding
Till scarcely anyone’s left standing.
Is it possible we’re heading
Toward one great climactic wedding,
When all but two remain unmerged,
The rest absorbed, acquired, or purged?
The final stage of evolution,
The ultimate event of fusion,
A blinding flash, a cosmic bang,
The Yin becomes one with the Yang.
Emerging from the hot debris,
A publishing monopoly,
A monolith whose awesome goal
Is seizure of complete control
Of every stage of publication
From the author’s inspiration
To remaindering and pulping.
“Why,” I hear you loudly gulping,
“You’re just disseminating fear.
Surely that can’t happen here. . . . “
1987: Games Publishers Played
Mergermania was the theme:
Random House devised a scheme
To transfer Schocken’s colophon
To its division, Pantheon.
And HP Books responded “Yes”
When popped the question by P/S/S.
Theodore Cross, an eager buyer,
Joined the stampede to acquire.
At Harper & Row he cast his net,
But Rupert Murdoch raised his bet.
Robert Maxwell made a pitch
For Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Boldly sneering, “Nuts to you,”
Big Bill thwarted Maxwell’s coup.
Sheltering its fleet in one great harbor,
The Hearst Corp integrated Arbor.
Another case (a phrase to borrow)
Of Here today, gone to Morrow.
It takes no prodigy to see
Resemblance to Monopoly.
For publishers to win their games,
They have to cram their lists with “names”
And pay unprecedented fees
For memoirs of celebrities.
The bio of a minor star
Precipitates a bidding war.
A Wall Street type who millions steals
Is offered publication deals.
On Warner profits rained like manna
From its stirring Life of Vanna,
And Pocket reaped a pile of lolly
On the rhetoric of Ollie.
Talking Heads and The Temptations,
Both groups published their creations.
Phillip Glass and Borscht Belt wise man
Jackie Mason, Joseph Theisman,
Carol Burnett and Helen Hayes,
Proved that literature pays.
Oleg, Gorby, Sidney Biddle,
Lech and Lenny, Fawn and Fidel,
Baez, Berry, Collins, Raffi,
Every bigshot but Khadaffi
Was by editors pursued
Or by book packagers was wooed.
Gary Hart and Donna Rice
Went to agents for advice,
And every other New York Giant
Seemed a William Morris client.
This feeding frenzy has produced
A beast who’s now come home to roost,
A slavering omnivore that dines
On ever-growing bottom lines.
And what’s in store for ‘88
Is far too grim to contemplate.
Will mergermania reach new heights?
I don’t know. But . . .
Will the last company to leave publishing
Please turn out the lights?
1988: Going Global
One year ago this humble bard
The rush to merger did regard,
And sadly shook his wizened head
In pity, wonderment and dread
As frantic buyers partners sought
To make a match. But if you thought
That acquisitions would abate,
You need but look at ‘eighty-eight.
[Refrain]
Going global, going global,
Everybody’s going global,
Publishers both base and noble,
Healthy ones and ones in trouble,
Benefit from going global.
Raiders in battalion strength
Proved apt to go to any length,
To spend a maharaja’s ransom
In their desperate need to land some
Prize like Zondervan or Ginn,
Western, Vanguard, Crown, Irwin.
Carol Management bought Lyle
For not an unsubstantial pile.
Now Stuart authors must pay fealty
To a firm that deals in realty.
Foreign deals still held the stage.
Bass and Maxwell war did wage
To corner a controlling block
Of Macmillan common stock.
In vain directors cried defiance
At these offers of alliance.
As execs wailed, “Who will have us?,”
Up stepped white knights Kohlberg, Kravis.
Frenzied action soon ensued
As this coy mistress bidders wooed.
Though Kohlberg, Kravis hewed its axe well,
Big Mac was to fall to Maxwell
(Who suffers keen dyspepsia still
From Harcourt Brace’s poison pill).
[Refrain]
Going global, going global, etc.
And so Macmillan joined the ranks
Of firms no longer owned by Yanks:
Dutton, Harper, NAL,
Scribner, Viking, Bantam, Dell,
Atheneum, Doubleday,
Holt and Grolier — they all pay
Obsequies and loyal devotion
To employers ‘cross the ocean.
U.S. houses now are chattel
Of consortia internat’l.
French and Germans, Brits and Aussies
Have become our lordly bosses.
Anyone who hopes to get work
Has to join some o’erseas network.
Lowly trainees, senior editors
Bend their knees to foreign predators.
All this trade among the nations
Triggers waves of new migrations,
Hirings, firings, resignations,
Chaos and disintegrations.
Countless are the souls who wake up
Victims of a major shakeup.
But bear in mind that adage true:
That which goes ‘round comes ‘round, too.
Today’s acquisitor may be
Tomorrow morn’s acquisitee.
EVERYBODY NOW!. . . .
Going global, going global, etc.
1989: Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Industry of Mine
Time and Warner posted banns,
Thrilling acquisition fans.
Just as they were on the verge,
Martin Davis got the urge
Ten billion bucks or so to splurge.
Would S&S and Little, Brown
Go the way of Random-Crown?
Para mounted all-out war.
Arbitrageurs hoped to score.
Davis offered cash, plus tix
To the Rangers and the Knicks.
The only benefit to Warners:
At least the buyers weren’t foreigners.
But Dick Munro the raider spurned,
And to the altar Time returned.
Murdoch made his spearhead sharper
When he alloyed Collins-Harper.
And, as a hawk stoops to a sparrow,
Random pounced on Century-Arrow.
Penguin augmented its kith
By buying W. H. Smith.
And Houghton Mifflin joined the dance
When it purchased old Gollancz.
Ah, romance!
Talk of nuptials, this year’s biggie
Comparable to Kerm and Piggie,
Was the Janklow-Nesbit wedding.
Hosts of clients viewed their bedding.
Jealous agents would disparage
Lynn and Morty’s power marriage.
What cared they? They had each other
(Plus every author and his brother).
Now Times reporters note the levees
Of these literary heavies.
The firm that Edward Dutton molded
Ignominiously folded,
Its proud but sore beleaguered staff
Cast to winds like so much chaff.
When Penguin brought in Morty Mint,
Bob Diforio took the hint.
Random House had cause to grieve
When Robert Bernstein took his leave,
A departure oddly rushed.
Did he fall or was he pushed?
Not for Si a number two house,
He would now create a Newhouse.
Al Vitale he selected,
Who from B-D-D defected.
And Sonny Mehta — what a mess!
Drawn and quartered in the press
Because the fellow had the gall
To not return some agent’s call.
Now the decade’s end draws nigh.
Our battle-weary eyes are dry.
We bid farewell without a pang
To beaucoup Sturm and plus de Drang.
It avails us naught to rake over
Tales of ten grim years of takeover
And multinational aggression
That doomed the Gentleman’s Profession.
Nor shall we go to undue pains
To chronicle the way the chains
In thrall our industry did hold.
Nor will you once again be told
How hard-soft houses soared to dominance
And business-school types rose to prominence.
Instead, the future we survey.
We hope the Nineties will be Gay
And that we will reverse the trend,
Discover merger’s not an end,
Acquisition not the goal:
Unacceptable the toll.
For if no publishers are left,
And if of authors we’re bereft,
Where’s Literary Guild to get
Attendees to its annual fete?
One thing you may take as certain:
Readers in the Iron Curtain
Hungry markets will unlock.
And now, throughout the Eastern Bloc,
In Berlin, Warsaw, Budapest,
In Moscow, Prague, and all points west,
In every land where freedom burns,
Publishers will eat returns.
1990: Stop the Millennium, I Want to Get Off
The Eighties were a time of greed,
When wealthy firms on poor did feed,
When brand name authors fortunes earned
While struggling acolytes were spumed.
One hoped that 1990 would
Restore some sense, some calm, some good.
Well . . .
Matushita’s bold attempt
MCA shares to preempt
Was met with hearty Banzai cheers
And proffered toasts with Kirin beers.
Thus Putnam queenpin Phyllis Grann
Will soon take orders from Japan
When her firm joins, within the year,
The Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Unless the buyout is a no-go,
The Rising Sun will be her logo,
With every Putnam Berkley lackey
Dining out on teriyaki.
Bidding for two surefire stars
Went to the moon, then on to Mars.
Jeffrey Archer filled his till
With three books netting twenty mil,
While Dell reached deep into its wallet
To find twelve million for Ken Follett.
Depending on your point of view,
A coup de maître or Follett à deux.
Weidenfeld was on the rocks.
His Lordship put it on the blocks.
Suitors turned out by the dozen.
Many bid but none was chosen.
Backers who had hoped for more play
Had to be content with foreplay.
The offers simply were too petty
To turn the head of Madame Getty.
(Cancel that order for confetti!)
The papers told us that Dick Snyder
Was becoming sweet as cider.
The gist, according to the press —
A kinder, gentler, S&S.
Advancing years have made Dick mellow,
An easygoing, regular fellow.
But battle-hardened agent vets
Were not accepting any bets.
For they could read between the gists:
New velvet gloves for old mailed fists.
Contemporary’s New York shop
Turned out to be a dismal flop.
The Apple scene was just the pits,
It cost too much to publish hits.
The fiction stakes proved far too high,
The game was friendlier in Chi.
Although they’d hoped to make a statement,
Their money gushed without abatement,
A hemorrhage that none could stanch.
So Harvey Plotnick closed the branch
And issued staffers slips of pink
Executed in red ink,
And fled town in such haste unseeming
That one could still see Coffey steaming.
Whenever inspiration flags
And hapless pundits beg for gags,
The source on which one can depend
Is Random House, the poet’s friend.
Behold the plethora of rhyme
This firm inspired in one year’s time.
Al Vitale is a fine guy,
But so is he a bottom line guy.
Losers? Pantheon had got ‘em.
Bottom line was too damn bottom.
Vitale then slashed half the list
(Some said they’d none of them be missed).
So editors resigned en masse,
Inducing migraines for the brass.
Its wagons Random House did circle
To fend off charges by Studs Terkel.
Branding management immoral,
The chronicler waxed highly oral.
Into the tumult leapt James Michener,
Waving his sabre like Lord Kichener.
In time the uprising was stilled.
But when the Pantheon they rebuild,
I’ll give you twelve to seven odds
That Al won’t be among the gods.
And next time Janklow makes a deal
For Judith Krantz or Danielle Steele,
Pantheon will lead the bidding.
(Sorry, Andre, only kidding.)
And then, one fine fall day — good heavens! —
The Powers That Be bumped Joni Evans.
As one good Evans deserves another,
They brought in Harold (not her brother),
While in the wings stands one named Nancy
If Harold fails to suit Al’s fancy.
And as for Joni, worry not.
A Random imprint’s what she got.
“I’m merely,” Joni told the press,
“Deploying to a new address.
And far from being in deep pottage,
I’ll start a kind of Random Cottage.”
For Knopf’s proud mogul Sonny Mehta
Life simply cannot get much bettah.
Who would have guessed apotheosis
After ‘89’s prognosis?
Scapegoat last year, savior this,
O Times, how fickle is thy kiss!
‘Twas Mehta said, “Feel free to sell us
That splat-roman by Easton Ellis.”
Thus Vintage bought from agent Binky
A book that S&S deemed stinky,
With mutilations so bedight
That one wag called it “Urban Blight.”
Now Disney is our latest house.
Its plans are far from mickeymouse.
We wish Bob Miller at its helm
High sellthroughs in the Magic Realm.
But vultures in the air still hover,
We throw out dough we can’t recover.
We genuflect to new Madonnas —
Leonas, Marlas, and Ivanas.
We buy and then in turn are bought,
Ignoring what last decade taught.
It looks as if this want of feck’ll
Dominate the fin de siècle.
How quickly the suspicion grows:
Plus ça change, c’est la même chose.
1991: A Year of Revelations
The book trade suffered a recession
In every genre but confession.
Because we had to have our sleaze
The mills destroyed a lot of trees.
No publisher could lose its shirt
On books that dished up tons of dirt.
Celebrities whose sheen had tarnished
Revealed in print The Whole Unvarnished.
Literary agents hondled
Deals for stars who had been fondled.
Reege and Kathy sought to schmooze
With every victim of abuse.
And Oprah spoke with prurient interest
To all who had indulged in incest.
Reprinters set outrageous floors
For what went on behind closed doors.
You spent two weeks at Betty Ford?
A hard-soft deal was your reward.
Your Uncle Isidore was gay?
They featured you at ABA.
Kitty had us taking bets
About those White House tete-a-tetes.
What Nancy did with Old Blue Eyes
Was a source of wild surmise.
Michael Jackson’s younger sister
Asserted that her father kissed her.
TV actress Susanne Somers’
Early childhood years were bummers.
The same was true for Mariette Hartley.
Partly.
Meanwhile, back at Publishers’ Row,
Activity was far from slow.
Harcourt, mired to its shoulders,
Couldn’t pay off junk bond holders.
Just when it seemed the house was doomed,
A movie firm its debts assumed.
Photography will soon begin
On Diaries of Anais Nin,
An epic film that claims no equals,
Plus forty-four projected sequels.
Bankruptcy fears began to loom
When Robert Maxwell met his doom.
We fret about Macmillan’s lot
In the wake of Maxwell’s yacht.
St. Martin’s passed up the Convention
To improve its cash retention.
The savings go toward buying winners
(Plus, one hopes, some agent dinners).
Atlantic Monthly sought to scuttle
Negotiations with Charles Tuttle.
An Entrekin-led task force claimed it,
Then “House of Morgan” he renamed it.
Bill Sarnoff collared Little, Brown
And hauled it south to New York town.
To allay staff anxiety
He promised them autonomy:
“You’ll operate as heretofore –
We’ll put you on a different floor.”
S&S’s Charlie Hayward
Took his marbles Warner wayward,
Sparking rumors Rubinesque
About who’d occupy his desk.
As vacuums Snyder doth abhor,
Romanos’ name went on that door.
Jim Silberman’s descent was fleet
From the Summit to the street.
The brass don’t say that Jim was sacked,
They just did not renew his pact.
(To Little, Brown he took his act.)
Susan Moldow made her play
For Harper’s house from Doubleday.
Now her hat hangs in a cubby
Down the corridor from hubby.
Doubleday its hopes then pinned
On David Gernert, wunderkind.
Joni Evan’s’ atelier
Set up house in Turtle Bay.
Her clutch of comely Ninja Belles
Will shell out lots for kiss-and-tells.
Talk about your shelling out,
The army’s guns packed lots of clout:
In his agent-powered Phantom
Stormin’ Norman smart-bombed Bantam.
A $6 mil peace treaty they tendered,
Then unconditionally surrendered.
For his memoirs Ollie North
Took HarperColl for all it’s worth.
Just how this fortune they’d recover
The wisest sage could not discover.
The strategy defied description,
Sales reps had to learn encryption,
Distribution points were coded,
Certain stores were overloaded,
Others got a beggar’s mite
Delivered in the dead of night.
When analysts assess its fate
They just might term it “Bombeck-gate”.
Nor O’Rourke’s Whores nor Mailer’s Harlot
Matched the sales of Ripley’s Scarlett.
And yet, though half the country read her,
Ripley bit the hand that fed her.
She took publishers to task,
Causing some of them to ask:
If publishers have made her rich,
Why does she talk like such a…fink?
I guess, a Scarlett phrase to borrow,
She’ll think about such things tomorrow.
The Times they are a changin’ chairs
For Wednesday book beat functionaires.
Our dear old buddy Ed McDowell
Decided to throw in the towel.
And now we pray that Esther Fein
Our industry will not malign.
If anyone’s to treat it cruelly,
The job belongs to…well,
Yours Truly.
2007: The Year of the Platform
“Branding” was ‘07’s motto.
Every author learned he’s got to
Flaunt the palms and laurels that form
Famous folk’s distinctive platform.
Agents learned how well it pays
To inflate clients’ résumés.
But midlist writers fetched up stranded,
Unrecognized, unknown, unbranded.
Q1 profits turned to dust
When Advance Marketing went bust.
Stricken indie presses writhed
To see their precious cash flow tithed
‘Til Perseus, like that Greek of yore,
Delivered them from ruin’s door.
Retailers faced major issues,
Chain store margins thin as tissues.
Big box outlets, e-books, clubs,
A host of discount Beelzebubs
Like Costco, Amazon and Google
Courted bookstore shoppers frugal.
Holtzbrinck to Macmillan morphed.
“What’s the difference?” pundits scoffed.
“Grand Central also looks the same.”
A rose by any other name…
The trade enjoyed increasing traffic
In comics, manga and novels graphic
As grownups hastened to embrace
The dumbdown of the populace.
Language cops are in a snit
With Skinny Bitch and On Bullshit.
Do Assholes Rule? Oh no, they sell.
For censorship has gone to H**l.
Harper faced a sticky wicket.
What will life be after Snicket?
And will Scholastic’s empire totter
With the final Harry Potter?
Anxiously that firm went prowling
For a clone of A. J. Rowling
To fill the awful void that follows
Harry and the Deathly Hollows.
E-books wakened from their funk.
Emailed books? No longer junk!
When editors and agents shmooss,
As like as not they’ll introduce
A jargon-laden nomenclature
Like none Linnaeus found in nature.
“DADs” and “DOIs” and “PODs” and “Digits”,
“RAM” and “ROM” and “Gigs” and “Widgets”.
We raise a glass of cold Frascati
To editors turned technorati.
But are our values turning asswards
When opening books requires passwords?
James Frey’s fortunes wildly bounced.
A novel yet! But Harper pounced.
Some thought that Frey’s career was feces
After A Million Little Pieces.
Sneering cynics! That’ll learn ‘em!
They didn’t reckon on Jon Burnham,
Who, ignoring sage advice,
Defied the maxim “Fool me twice.”
Judith Regan filed a brief
Seeking millions in relief.
After News Corp’s Chief Commander
Pulled the gynarch’s plug and canned her.
Faulty judgment her transgression,
Buying O. J.’s faux confession.
Tempers soared from hot to fissile
Over her abrupt dismissal.
Harperites expressed belief
She ran an independent fief.
Slurs attributed to Regan
Would horrify Menachem Begin.
Her charges seemed somewhat chimeric,
Something linking Fox and Kerick
And presidential hopeful Rudy
Being the cause for dumping Judy.
Overlooked while this transpired –
A sordid crime and the book it sired.
Jack Romanos cashed his chips,
Threw a fête replete with VIPS.
S&S’s top banana
Set a course for staid Savannah.
To manage stress he eschewed Rolfing,
Chose instead to pursue golfing.
We honor his ambitions Snead-y
And curtsy to successor Reidy.
Publishers don’t set much store on
“Happy returns”, an oxymoron.
To us returns are never happy,
Signifying sales are crappy.
But, ‘tis the season for cliché –
We wish you many anyway.
2008: The Coming of the POD People
What Nostradamus could foresee
The wonder known as POD?
Could Gutenberg in his vainglory
Imagine life sans inventory?
Now that paper is de trop,
Digital is comme il faut.
Manuscripts and printed copy?
Deader than the three-inch floppy.
Editors eschew blue pencils.
Obsolete as quills and stencils!
To make our industry more green,
They edit on a Sony screen.
And agents now submit their schlock
By means of email as dot-doc.
Jeff Bezos, richer than the Bourse,
Wanted to mint more, of course.
This tycoon cast a jealous eye
On profits made at LSI.
Thus Amazon began to urge
A shift of custom to BookSurge
For printing books upon demand
(A wish that sounded like command).
Mary Matalin’s hired hatchet
Drove the Left completely batshit
With a wild-eyed swift boat hack job
Written by a right-wing wack job
With pen so deep in poison dipped
It spun Max Schuster in his crypt.
It looked like S&S had gone
Clear to the right of Genghis Khan.
Before they launched Obama Nation
They sent fact checkers on vacation.
We hail our newly chosen leader,
Author, speaker, and – a reader!
Articulating dreams and hopes
In orotund Churchillian tropes.
A man the nation puts its trust in
To usher in an Age Augustan.
His reading tastes we scan for clues,
For, what Barack reads sells in slews
Just when you feared you would be fired
Or simply forcibly retired,
Wait! Belay robe and pajamas —
Acquire books about Obamas!
First Puppy, Guppy, Daughter, Spouse,
A veritable Obama House.
Success? One thing alone is vital:
Just put the Big O in the title.
But how ho-hum would ’08 be
Without such gifts beneath the tree
As vampire fiction dark and bright,
The blood-drenched pack led by Twilight.
Next — Joe the Plumber’s CD-Rom?
Memoirs of a hockey mom?
Seven bucks will surely getcha
Ten the title is You Betcha!
Rupert bade adieu to Friedman,
Then made Brian Murray lead man.
Explanation? Somewhat blurry.
God only knows (or maybe Murray).
Speculation is beguiling.
And somewhere – Judith Regan’s smiling.
Great bewilderment arose
When Harcourt acquisitions froze.
The buzz about this bitter pill?
The parent firm owed seven bil!
Becky, shorn of raison d’etre,
Tendered resignation lettre.
And as we watched with breath abated
Arbitrageurs salivated.
Word came down from Gütersloh:
Peter Olson had to go.
His departure left a hole,
So Random House went on the Dohle.
Herr Dohle then told Herr Applebaum
That he’d run out of lebensraum.
Hyperion-watchers asked who shall be
Replacing Ed-in-Chief Will Schwalbe.
He preached how emails should be sent,
Then hit “Escape” and off he went.
No need to search in Disney’s basement
For the worthy Will’s replacement.
It took no time at all to vet
The estimable Will Balliett.
Prestige and Power to him beckoned,
Thus one Good Will begot a second.
And speaking now of Good Will Hunting
May your halls be decked with bunting.
Though indicators may be dropping,
Suck it up and go out shopping.
‘Tis not the time to practice thrifts.
This season’s motto: Books=Gifts.
Two thousand nine was one big gloomer,
Cruel to poets bent on humor.
Versifiers can’t be funny
When everyone is losing money.
Pink slips issued, long knives flashed,
Departments cut and imprints slashed,
Luncheon budgets compromised,
Bookspan party vaporized,
Editors abruptly laid off,
And don’t get me started with Bernie Madoff!
O Muse, I pray, your face make visible
And help this bard pen something risible…
Novelists who couldn’t get work
Found it on the social network
Washed up hacks got off their bums
And took to texting with their thumbs.
Now any writer sane or dotty
Calls himself a twitterati,
Producing literary treasures
In hundred forty unit measures.
The future Milton, Pope or Keats –
Immortalized in deathless tweets!
Right wing books were all the vogue,
Topped by Sarah’s Going Rogue,
Birthers, ‘baggers, mavericks,
Cheney, Armey and other Dicks –
Where righties once were Balkanized,
We’re Limbaughed, Becked and Malkinized.
What’s a liberal house to do
When red state bucks turn spreadsheets blue?
Behold the Sony, Nook and Kindle
Spawn of Gutenberg and Tyndale.
Every day a new device
Bids to win a market slice.
Tipping-pointward e-books tramp,
Overrunning print-books’ camp.
Ten years ago a callow stripling,
Now every month shows volume tripling.
Stymied what to name its book,
B&N all names forsook.
Riggio’s choice had punsters grinning,
Smarmy innuendi spinning,
Nooksters had the final laugh:
Preorders soared clear off the graph.
Two thousand nine – the year that we
Were taught the benefits of “free”.
A book is now considered bought
When it is sold to you for naught.
This paradox makes perfect sense
Unless you hope for recompense.
We learned that zero is a price.
If you’re the buyer? Really nice!
If you’re the seller? Lots of luck.
For gratis? – hard to make a buck!
It’s fine for paradigms to shift
As long as authors don’t get stiffed.
“No one reads,” said Apple’s Jobs,
“Atrophies your frontal lobes.
Video is where it’s at.
Stuff your e-books in your hat.”
When market share began to dwindle,
Jobs paid grudging heed to Kindle,
Then cashed in on th’ebook bonanza
With an iPhone app called Stanza.
Ah, Steve, hypocrite lecteur!
In rare display of harmony,
Authors Guild and AAP
Beat the drum and blew the bugle
To advocate the pact with Google,
Appealing to Judge Denny Chin
To strike a blow for opting in.
William Morris wasn’t thrilled,
Tried to get the package killed,
Alleged the Authors Guild had copped out,
Urged its clientele to opt out.
Five million orphaned books await
Judgment Day for Settlegate.
Attention shoppers!
Wal-Mart slashed its hardback pricing,
A ploy to make its books enticing.
Soon every superstore and mall mart
Had a hack at matching Wal-Mart.
In jumped Amazon and Target,
Leaving retailers geharget.
Three sixes were the Devil’s sign,
Now replaced by nine ninety-nine.
We scoff at prophecies of Mayans
And offer toasts to healthy buy-ins.
So what if 2012 draws nigh?
Prognostications? Mike’s our guy.
Seers of yore are mere ersatz kin
Compared to clairvoyant Mike Shatzkin,
We hope his crystal ball discloses
A featherbed of ruby roses
So – raise a glass and shout “L’Chaim!”
To all who sell ‘em and all who buy ‘em.
2010: The App
Scarcely had the year unfurled
When iPad swept into the world.
Compensation posed by Apple
Proved bewildering to grapple.
Big Six lawyers scratched their noddle
Parsing Jobs’s business model.
Fretting that his precious Kindle
Market share would sharply dwindle.
Bezos took extreme exception,
Spoiled his e-book foe’s reception.
Took his ire out on Macmillan,
Cast it in the role of villain,
Fired a broadside at John Sargent
Cost Macmillan beaucoup d’argent.
“Windowing” (as it was called)
Left countless bibliophiles appalled.
When publishers attempted holdback
Customers demanded rollback.
Ablaze with righteous indignation,
They engineered a demonstration:
With their mouses (mice?) they voted,
High-ranked authors they demoted.
No seemly wait would they allow –
“We want our e-books and want them now!
You want my ratification?
Don’t mess with instant gratification!
We won’t pay for your MMPBs
’Cause we’re entitled to our freebies!”
Andrew Wylie jumped the shark,
Leaving clients in the dark.
Went into the e-book game,
Odyssey his imprint’s name.
Signed an Amazon exclusive
To Random’s good will not conducive.
Jackal’s e-book misadventure
Instigated Dohle’s censure.
Publishers are not amused
When agent ethics seem confused.
Authors also get annoyed.
They like their agents unalloyed.
Musical chairs this year were chill.
Ain’t a lot of chairs to fill! Still…
HarperStudio upped and died
When Bob to Peter Workman hied.
Perhaps he’d rather take his chances
With publishers that pay advances?
The pain for authors was as sharp
When Hachette bid adieu to Karp
Will his old imprint take a bath?
Twelve minus one – you do the math!
The prize for coolest move of all?
Bestowed on David Rosenthal.
Hired by the Penguin org,
Worked a few years at a morgue.
(Is there a poet could ignore
This made-in-heaven metaphor?)
Publishers expressed enchantment
With the notion of enhancement.
Audio, video, music, flix,
Bangles, baubles, Bar Mitzvah pix.
A tune or two was all it took
To constitute a mobile vook.
They tossed in every kind of crap
And designated it an app.
Though patriotic saws we spout,
We farm e-book production out.
“Made in USA” a myth,
Pick up the phone, you don’t get Smith.
Continents and oceans spanning,
We outsource stripping, prep and scanning.
In Mumbai, Agra, Cooch and Mysore
Every proofreader is eye-sore.
Indians are making whoopee
Working for the Yankee rupee.
Conference operator Reed,
Seeing conference income bleed,
Hinted it might do away
With its shortened BEA.
Tried to merge with ALA,
That one fetched up DOA!
Expo suffers cataplexy,
Tools of Change a bit more sexy?
Now hoist a mug of stout libation
As we commence our peroration:
May all your e-books be enhanced,
Your acquisitions well-financed.
And like a toddy mulled with schnapps
May every day be filled with apps.
Make sure you write upon your doormat
“Here we welcome every format.”
And, like a ball festooned with spices,
A plethora of cool devices:
Kobo, Copia, Kindle, Nook,
Sony, iPad and… hmm, let’s see, did I leave anything out?
Oh yes, I almost forgot…printed book.
2016: There Is Still Time, Brother
After a Winkle-ish hiatus
We retrofit the old afflatus,
Consult our Siri or other tech aid
To limn in verse the recent decade.
The Kindle launched the E-book Era,
Some scoffed but it was no chimaera.
Retailers in all the nations
Succumbed to Amazon’s predations.
Revenues attained the max
(It helped that they paid little tax).
But now we’ve lived to see it dwindle
Ten years from the launch of Kindle.
The presto beat has slowed to lento
While print enjoys risorgimento.
Children, elderly and teens,
All seem inclined to spurn their screens.
We love the paper book’s allure,
News of its death is premature.
Len Riggio, who once inspired
Mortal fear, is soon retired.
Of Amazon he’s had his fill
(He’ll salve his pain with half a bil).
A great shellacking Lenny took
When customers forsook the Nook.
His book-chain’s tzuris soon grew chronic.
And don’t you think it quite ironic,
Seeing this titan mired in trouble
And feeling bad for… Barnes & Noble?
Borders died and went to heaven,
Drank the draught of Chapter Seven.
Beginning of the End foretold?
Nope! Put that augury on hold,
For though the chain was liquidated
Our worst-case fears were mitigated.
A mighty horde of little shops,
Run by zealous moms and pops,
Sprang from the rubble underneath
Like that host from Cadmus’ teeth.
A Dunkirk rescue for our stores
To bring back bookshops to our shores.
Self-pubbed authors by the score
Enlisted others in their corps,
Advocating insurrection
From Establishment subjection.
Alas, they learned success depends
On sales to family and friends.
The ancient proverb’s still conclusive:
The wealth of Indies is elusive.
We learned to format Deals for Lunch,
Our hype compressed to one long munch,
A style devised by Michael Cader
With log-lines longer than a seder.
Hope died hard that Penguin/Random
Just might coexist in tandem.
Years of speculation ended
When the two at last were blended.
Wielding scimitar, The Turk
Performed his nasty severance work.
A day that everyone had dreaded,
Even imprints were beheaded.
Perseus, great Zeus’s son,
Deciding that his days were done,
A pair of twins did he beget,
One named Ingram, one Hachette.
Thus, rent in twain, no more to mend,
Did the Perseid Dynasty end.
In the beginning was the word,
Once was read but now is heard.
The audiobook now reigns supreme
On CD, tape cassette and stream,
Headphones, ear buds, iPods, jacks
Have all replaced mass paperbacks.
Readers swapped their jones for fiction
For a coloring book addiction.
The market’s in the pink of health,
Color it bright green for wealth.
No matter what the hue or tint,
Every imprint made a mint.
Nary a publisher sang the blues,
You had to be a dope to lose.
And speaking of Trump…
Will Donald’s coup election night
Propel our business to the right?
Will liberal authors be endangered,
It Takes a Village (sob!) remaindered?
But consider yourself by Fortune kissed
If there’s a Trump book on your list.
The trade of gentleman in sooth
Is now a gig performed by youth
With texts and messaging equipped,
Macro keyed and microchipped.
And marketing and social media,
Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia.
They say change is an idle dream,
The more things change the same they seem.
Check back with us a decade hence
To learn if publishing still makes sense.
2024: A.I.? Oy!
Forty years since the inaugural
Of this observer’s yearly doggerel
Chronicling the cavalcade
Of gaffes and follies of our trade.
But that was then and this is now.
It’s time to take our final bow.
Conjure, Muse, a few good tropes
To ease us down these parlous slopes.
The writing trade was sorely vexed
When GPT-3 filched their text,
“No need for you to get upset,
Our gizmo represents no threat,
We only want your work to train
The neural circuits of its brain.
We’ll swipe it, scan it, strip it, rip it
To generate one measly snippet!
It’s just a little app called Chat,
How could you folks find fault with that?”
Content owners, up in arms,
On social media voiced alarms.
Agents’ mouths were all afroth,
Hollywood waxed plenty wroth.
Authors Guild waxed even wrother
On behalf of every author,
Hauled the miscreants into court,
Charging them with flagrant tort.
Defendants proffered this excuse:
“Our lawyers told us it’s fair use.”
The upshot of this much-hyped tech?
Bots hallucinating dreck,
Automatons producing fiction,
With clichéd plots and scrambled diction.
The ballyhooed Large Language Model
Spewing cockamamie twaddle.
But who would not go into hock
For one small tranche of Nvidia stock?
Authors marketed their brand
On every medium in the land
WhatsApp, Reddit, Instagram,
LinkedIn, Quora, Telegram,
Meta, YouTube, Twitch, Bluesky,
Tik-Tok, X and Spotify.
The outcome is that no one quite
Can find sufficient time to write.
Scores of precious volumes vanished,
Liquidated, yanked or banished.
Book proscription turned intensive,
Prose and poems found offensive,
Bawdy, naughty, lewd, unsafe,
Shameful, vile, obscene or trayf.
Thought police went on the prowl,
Seizing works they reckoned foul,
Sweeping up with zealous broom
Beloved books by Judy Blume.
Bowdlers tracked down books to ban,
Rivaling Afghanistan.
Morals squads set out to purge
Accounts of adolescent urge
And surveilled bloggers to detect
Views divergent from correct.
Anything to do with gender?
Scorn heaped on the base offender!
Censors sought to expurgate
Prurient stories gay or straight.
(The vote’s an automatic nay
on LGBTQIA.)
Captain Underpants forbidden,
Under lock and key was hidden.
Dr. Seuss’s Hop on Pop
Collared by a culture cop.
Nor was Harry Potter spared,
Evil spells made children scared.
Goblins, fairies, sprites and elves
Banished from library shelves.
Gretel and her brother Hansel
Censors deemed it meet to cancel.
The verdict on A Wrinkle in Time?
Tantamount to capital crime!
Two male penguins and their chickee?
Squeamish parents judged them icky.
It’s been my pleasure to traverse
Four merry decades framed in verse
And survey publishing’s parameters
In far from elegant tetrameters.
I’ve written all that must be said,
It’s time to quit while I’m ahead.
So I’ll jump off this carousel
And bid you all a fond…
Farewell.
Richard Curtis has been described as the greatest literary agent on East 72nd Street between New York City’s Second and Third Avenues.