Craft Beer and the Next Economy

Picture from Brewfest Link

A couple of Saturdays ago I went to the Hyperlocal Brewfest at the Somerville armory. It was a dozen or so area craft, micro, and other (the other being Sam Adams & Narraganset, which was nice because I'd been intrigued by the Sam Adams Porch Rocker, but wanted to try some before committing to a six-pack. Verdict: It'd be perfect if I'd just mowed a lawn, but I think I'll fill my fridge with other beers) brewers giving tall pours and unlimited samples of their wares. I tried beers from Cambridge Brewing Company, Watch City, Backlash, Idle Hands, Jack's Abby, Somerville Brewing Company, and Night Shift. The CBC, Jack's Abby (which I didn't realize was local) and Somerville Brewing Company, had the best individual beers, and the pims beer (which really tasted like a pims cup, meaning it was cucumber beer) from Cape Anne was really interesting, but the best beverage I had was a combination of Night Shift's Taza Chocolate Stout AND! Viva Habanero, a rye malt with habanero peppers. (For the love of peace and justice and the children and puppies, put that in a bottle!)

Of course, this is all part of the growing localism trend, the absurd belief that life is better when you give enough of a shit about the town or city you live in to shop in a way that supports said economy of said town. (Aside, I wonder how strong the locavore movement is in this small-town value-driven, um, towns, that people keep telling me are the real America. What? Wal-mart put all those stores out of business? OK then.) But with the national unemployment rate hovering around the 8s and looking like its going to stay there for awhile, and the growing concerns around global warming and climate change, I wonder if, more than just producing a delicious, delicious beverage, local-focused craft beer might be leading the way to the next American economy.

In general, locally owned businesses hire more people per dollar of sales than national and international businesses, at least in terms of retail. Part of this employment difference, of course, has to do with duplication of services. A thousand different locally owned businesses will all have their own marketing coordinator, personnel manager, receiver etc, while a large national chain will only have one or a small group meeting those responsibilities. (Part of this difference might also be that locally owned independent businesses don't usually have some rich asshole at the top demanding shmillions of dollars a year in earnings.) And, of course, the other benefits of shopping locally, such as tax revenue, property values, and general economic activity, are well documented, but I think the craft-micro-local beer industry might have even more to teach us.

What about an economy of small-scale manufacturing and production? When we think about restoring manufacturing in America, we tend to think about car factories, and other massive endeavors, the kind of industry that defined the, um, industrial revolution, but maybe the answer to our manufacturing deficit is to go small. Thousands of small operations around the country, hiring people with a productive level of redundancy and, perhaps, making high quality goods in an environmentally rational way at reasonable prices to boot.

Beer, of course, is the perfect product for sustainable small-scale production. You can start your business in your kitchen. If things go well you can be a tenant brewer as Pretty Things did, renting space in existing breweries to make your beer. And even if you end up owning your own brewery, you don't need a huge space for it. And there seems to be a range of economic sustainabilities in making beer; you've got your Sam Adams and Harpoon, and you've got your Peak, Notch, Cape Ann, Ipswitch, and you've got your Night Watch, Pretty Things, and Somerville Brewing Company.

In metro-Somerbridge, we're seeing a little bit of this, especially in terms of various food products, but is there a way to develop, small-scale clothing, appliance, home goods, electronics, and other manufacturing? Cities, towns, and state subsidize businesses all the time, usually through tax breaks and low interest loans, but nearly all of the time these subsidies go to big national chains. Wal-Mart walks into the local city council meeting promises adding 500 jobs by building a warehouse in the town and then casually hints they suppose they could build that warehouse in the next town over unless they don't have to pay property tax on the warehouse for ten years. (Then, because this is Wal-Mart, they deliver half the jobs they promised generally at a non-liveable wage, and if a few local businesses go out because of this, the city's tax base usually erodes even further, but I doubt I needed to tell you Wal-Mart is bad.) Millions or perhaps billions of dollars in local funds have been poured into massive and already successful and profitable businesses. It's kind of like the steroid era in baseball, the strongest are just getting stronger. (A couple places for all the data: The Institute for Local Self-Reliance and The 10% Shift)

But what if towns, cities, and counties, started subsidizing small-scale manufacturing and production? You would probably create more jobs for less money and, in terms of the city's investment, jobs that aren't going to up and relocate to Bangladesh. It would be investments in business owners who are themselves specifically invested in the well-being of the city. And this wouldn't have to mean the end of large-scale production.

Some products, cars, solar panels, wind turbines, etc. just can't be produced at the local level and that's fine. There can be room in our economy for the large-scale and the small-scale, the local and the international, the big and the small. The only reason we don't see more of a mixed economy is because big businesses tend to spend a lot of money on getting bigger, usually in the form of lobbying the shit out of Congress and local governments for tax breaks, subsidies, and lax regulation that gives them economic advantages. Or, they just take a 6.025% price advantage by not collecting and remitting sales tax. (AMAZON!)

But, as usual, it starts with beer. By making home brewing legal Jimmy Carter maybe have begun the process of the next American economy, a small-scale, sustainable, productive economy that creates jobs and lowers our carbon footprints. And delicious beer. Delicious delicious beer.

Will the Big Three Come Back? And a Couple Other Sports Thoughts

Of the four major American sports, basketball is my least favorite (which drops it to around 6^th or 7^th in the world of sports in general, but still puts it higher than just about anything else on TV) but it was damn near impossible not to become emotionally invested in the Boston Celtics this year. Everyone kept knocking them down and they just kept getting right back up. And not just dragging themselves to their feet to stagger through another round. They got back up to the Eastern Conference finals (more on that in unpacking the titular question) and went seven games with the Miami Heat, in the course of which, their play demanded Lebron James put it one of the great performances in NBA playoff history to beat them. They proved that great coaching and great team play can still beat the greatest individual talents the sport has to offer, if said great team could muster a few more points from their bench players.

But the question on everyone's mind of course, as the Heat fans gave the Celtics a standing ovation in the closing seconds of game 7 is, is this the end? Is “The Big Three” era coming to an end? There were points in this season (say, before the All-Star break) where this was an easy “no,” but, with the playoff performance the question is a lot more complicated, and is, I think, leaning ever so slightly towards, “yes.”

First of all, I think it's important to remember that if Avery Bradley was healthy the Celtics beat the Heat in six games. Maybe five. He would have guarded James most of the time, and by the playoffs, he had developed into an elite defender. Not only would he have added his own abilities, he would have eased the burden on Paul Pierce, who noticeably faded as the series wore on. Much like in their re-match with the Lakers when Kendrick Perkins went down, it wasn't poor play from the Big Three that accounted for a loss, but the absence of a key supporting player. The same thing could be said for the Heat, of course. If they had lost the 12 or so points Chalmers provided, they would have lost series. (And while we're on the Heat, if Chris Bosh didn't suddenly turn into a 3-point shooter in game 7, the Celtics would still be playing. I mean, seriously. What more could we ask from the Celtics defense than to force Bosh to take 3s as the shot clock expired?)

On to signing or not signing Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to new contracts. Let's start with Ray Allen, because I think the possibility of his contract is more complicated.

First of all, it depends in his ankle. If he gets out of ankle surgery and doesn't believe he can consistently make jump shots, I assume he'll retire. But even if the ankle comes back healthy, the Celtics would have to be concerned about his ability to stay healthy for an entire season, given the ankle, the bone spurs, and his age. I think we can safely assume that Ray Allen can no longer contribute effective starter minutes. But coming off the bench? If Ray Allen's ankle is healthy after the surgery, I think he can be an major contributing factor off the bench. In 12 minutes or so per game, we could expect about 12 points or so from Allen, but more importantly, a fresh Allen at the end of games could be huge. He could only average 6 or 7 points a game, but if those points come in the fourth quarter to close-out games, they will be major contributions to the team's success. And you don't have to run around to make free-throws.

The question is whether a future Hall of Famer and the greatest pure jump-shooter the game has ever seen is willing to take a 1 or 2 year contract that reflects that role. Because it will be a pay-cut. And it might be only a 1 year deal. Personally, I think a Wakefield-like contract makes a lot of sense for Ray Allen. In a diminished role, he could continue to contribute for a 2,3, or even 4 years, but any game and any season could be the last. The rolling contract that Wakefield had, could be a perfect fit.

During the playoffs, Kevin Garnett proved he is still an elite player and if the Celtics only sign one of them, it's going to be Garnett. The only question is the contract. Is he willing to accept that, as every year passes, he becomes more and more of an injury risk? Is he willing to take a pay-cut in order to help his team fill the gaps in their roster? What is most important to him, being a Boston Celtic or being a high paid NBA star? As with Allen, I think there is a contract in here that makes sense, probably for two-years and probably for less than what he's getting paid now.

There is another reason for sports fans to root for The Big Three coming back next season; we could see professional athletes make a decision based on something other than how much money they'll be paid. There is an amount of money that makes sense for the Celtics to offer Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen and there is a chance other teams will offer them more. Unfortunately, we may never know all the details that will ultimately go into the contract negotiations, but if two players who have embraced a team identity the way Garnett and Allen have can leave Boston for more money in the waning years of their careers, we'll have the final definitive confirmation that professional sports has become the same soul-crushing corporate culture as the rest of the world.

About damn time.

A few other sports things to catch up on. Given that Patrice Bergeron won the Selke, as entertaining as it might have been, I will not be pitching a fit. He should win it a half dozen times over his career as long as he stays healthy. However, I do have questions about Karlsson winning the Norris trophy. Yes, there is no question he was the best offensive defensman in the league, but that :35 average shorthanded time on ice really stands out to me. There could be a lot of reasons for it, but it makes his plus/minus 16 much less respectable. From his point totals he was on the ice for a minimum of 78 Ottawa goals, which means he was also on the ice for a minimum of 63 opposing goals, but with so little shorthanded time, nearly all of the opponents goals had to come even strength. (Chara on the other hand had 2:55 shorthanded time on ice and a 33 plus/minus.) When a defenseman is getting points like that, you'd think the net gain for the Senators would be a lot more than 16, especially when he's not killing penalties. For a somewhat unfair comparison, in 1968-9, when Bobby Orr scored a paltry 64 points, he had a plus/minusof 65. The game was different back then, but the stats still add up to opponents scoring a lot of even-strength goals when Karlsson is on the ice. Which makes me ask, if there's a Selke for forwards, why not an Orr for defensemen?

Offensive Juggernaut

If I came back from an around the world tour and you told me Felix Dubron had 8 wins, Daniel Nava was batting .333, Jarrod Saltalamaccia had 13 home runs and David Ortiz was toting around MVP level offensive numbers (.313 batting average, 49 RBI, 18 HR, .614 slugging) and asked me where the Sox were in the standings, I'd probably guess the best in baseball and well on their way to a 100 win season. With a disabled list of mythical proportions, a pitching staff that took two months to straighten out, Youkilis and Pedroia constantly nursing lingering injuries, and playing in a division that is somehow even better than it was last year, the Red Sox are not on their way to a 100 win season. Oh, and what's up with Adrian Gonzalez? I think just about everyone was ready for an off year for the Red Sox, for a whole host of reasons, but I don't think anybody was prepared for the David Ortiz to potentially have the best year of his career, and for the Red Sox organization to demonstrate some pretty remarkable depth. What does this mean for the season? Well, the rest of the AL East is crushing it as usual, being the only division with all teams above .500, and the Sox lost a lot of games early in the season, but they still have Ellsbury coming back and who knows what Crawford can so, the Red Sox are speeding headlong towards another end-of-season playoff heartbreak. That extra wild card might be just within reach, and if they get it, they'll get their opponents ace so...it might be a tough September. Or they could squeak in, everyone could get hot at the plate, and they could steamroll their way to another championship. Ah, Red Sox baseball.

No pads, no time-outs, and, they're friends are rowdier.

Finally, do not miss the rugby sevens at the Olympics this summer. Rugby sevens might be the purest, most athletic team sport in the world. It's played at a blistering pace, the players are freakish specimens of raw ability, and the US is the defending gold-medalist. (OK, we're not going to win any medals in rugby, but, hey, we've got enough.) Though it might be a little extreme to say your avoidance of rugby this summer will test the bonds of our friendship, your avoidance of rugby this summer will test the bonds of our friendship.

Review of Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man

Like all good memoirs, Jay Atkinson's Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man is about more than just what it's about. The center of gravity is rugby, but the memoir is about building an identity, discovering one's self in the course of one's life, and using that self as a guide through whatever else existence provides. For Atkinson, the culture of rugby provided a kind of stability that allowed him to cope with the emotional challenges of his life, while struggling through shitty jobs to be a writer.

As a rugby-player myself, I can say that Atkinson perfectly captures the culture of the sport. Camaraderie. Barely restrained recklessness. Penchant for mischief. Roll with the punches attitude. Drinking. Singing. Nicknames. (I was “The Prophet” if anyone is curious.) Through his anecdotes and reflections, most readers will get a good sense of what makes rugby rugby and why ruggers are so willing to constantly risk bodily harm in their sport.. Of course, this is a memoir, not an expose, so readers looking for a wealth of salacious details and vulgar lyrics will be slightly disappointed. There is debauchery, but only so much as can be experienced by a rugby player with a head on his shoulders.

Atkinson describes the games as well as he describes the parties. In some ways, rugby is a complex bundle of confusing contradictions. Despite being played on a roughly soccer-sized field, the bulk of the work takes place in the ugly, messy, brutal, virtually enclosed, chaotic-while-rigorously-policed, ruck as the teams vie for position and control of the ball after a player has been tackled. But then all of that work often culminates in moments of brilliant athletic grace; long passes across the field, perfect drop kicks through the goal posts, and fast runners balletting through the back line. As in all sports, there are specialized roles for the different positions, but all ruggers need a broad base of general skill; tackling, passing, catching, to be able to compete. And there's the scrum, a term that has taken on an opposite meaning in general use from what it means in rugby. The scrum might be the most highly orchestrated, technical, and delicate procedure in all of rugby as it involves getting eight players per team, in different positions, with different body types, and different skill sets and strengths to work in perfect unison. I don't know if there's anything more orderly in all team sport.

Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man is also a writing memoir. It was Atkinson's hopes for a writing career that brought him to Florida where his rugby career began in earnest, and it was there that he met the late great Harry Crews. If there are two muses in this book, rugby is one, and the hard drinking, hard teaching, hard writing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Crews is the other. And Atkinson stuck with writing just as he stuck with rugby, authoring Caveman Politics, Ice Time, Legends of Winter Hill and more.

Which made me surprised there aren't more rugger-writers in the world. What's the difference between a frat that kicks a keg on Friday night and a rugby team that kicks a keg on Friday night? Saturday morning. Who knows what the frat is doing, but I doubt it's walking step by step across a field to make sure it's clear of rocks, setting up goal posts, and painting lines, before playing perhaps the most physically demanding team sport in the world. (Water polo might have it beat, but not by much.) The difference is the work. Whatever else happens, rugby players are defined by the work of rugby. Same thing with writing. The difference between a writer who goes on a Friday night tear, and everybody else who goes on a Friday night tear, is the desk on Saturday morning. No matter what else happens in their lives, writers do the work of writing.

I think that is one of things that makes rugby so important to the people who play it. Sure there's the actual athletic action, there are the parties, there is the camaraderie, there is the ability of sport to unify disparate individuals into a team, but there is also a reason to drag your hung over ass out of bed on Saturday morning and do something. I think we live better, happier lives when he have that reason.

Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man will be most satisfying to people familiar with rugby, whether it's people who've just started watching the 7's version of the game on television, or players who know the tune of “I Used To Work in Chicago,” (You gotta wonder why that lady kept going back, she never got anything she asked for.) but general sports fans will enjoy this insightful look into what is still a fairly exotic sport in America. And since Atkinson never played professionally, he writes from the perspective of the life-long amateur, a perspective most of us can relate to.

Finally, since he is a writer there's a depth of experience and sincerity in the book that just cannot be created by ghost-written celebrity memoirs. You can feel that he didn't write this because he saw a publicity opportunity, but because this was his life and writers are compelled, for reasons often least understood by the writers themselves, to turn their lives into text.

The Brave New World of Ebooks, Especially the Basic Arithmetic No Journalists Seem to Feel Like Doing When Reporting on the Collusion Lawsuit

So I guess I've got another entirely too long blog post about the book industry in me, or perhaps more accurately, stuff has happened in the book world and if I try to keep all of this inside, you'll find me dead in a bathtub from an aneurism several days from now.

I'll get to ebooks prices in general and the role of self-published ebooks in publishing, but first the big news is that the Department of Justice, who I guess had finished up with all the bankers responsible for the crash of 2008, the possible gouging of the US government by the no-bid contractors in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (hey, you guys remember when Haliburton did such a bad job installing the showers, a soldier actually died taking one), and well, everything else going on in the world, has filed an anti-trust lawsuit alleging collusion to fix ebook prices by Apple and five major publishers. There has been a lot of reporting on this, but most of that reporting has left out some basic, well, arithmetic that explains the publishers actions, while also continuing to ignore the fact that ebooks are NOT substantially less to produce than print books. (At least, not at first, but more on that later.) So, here we go.

The Lawsuit and the Simple Arithmetic

The thrust of this lawsuit is that those five publisher decided together on what's called the “agency model” of ebooks pricing and decided together on what to price their ebooks in that model. In an “agency model” for ebooks sales the retailer, Amazon, Apple, Google (and through them Porter Square Books), Barnes & Noble, etc, acts as an “agent” for the publisher and receives a commission, usually 30% of the price of the ebook as set by the publisher. This is different from the traditional model, in which the publisher receives about 50% of the cover price and the retailer is able to sell the ebook for whatever price they choose.

When MacMillan and Apple first explored the agency option, Amazon was selling ebooks at dramatically low prices, often at $9.99-$4.99 for books that were retailing around $24.95. The result is that in the first few years of ebooks, Amazon represented about 90% of the ebooks market. (Hmmm, naw, it can't be a monopoly.) There were acceptable reasons for their early market dominance; they were the first to really push digital retail, while having the first successful dedicated digital reading device, but that doesn't account for 90%. Amazon was using the price flexibility of the traditional model to use predatory pricing to gain complete control of the ebooks market, and they were damn close to doing it.

It's usually about here, articles drop the ball. Some will point out that the publishers actually LOST money on the agency model (as with the traditional model they were still getting their 50% of $24.95 no matter what Amazon was selling them for) in order to foster a more competitive retail environment, but they never show the numbers behind the agency model's pricing that explains the existential risk to the publishing industry posed by an Amazon monopoly able to dictate ebooks discount terms. So, let's get ready to Math!

MATH!

Let's take your average new hardcover. Priced at $25.99, publisher on average get 50% of the cover price of a print book, or $12.99 for every print book sold. (And from that pay the janitors, the utility bills, the secretaries, the editors, the publicists, the cover designers, and, if there's any left, the writers, who dedicated whatever free time they could scrounge from however they paid their bills, to pour the very substance of their humanity onto notebook pages and hard-drives, for years and sometimes for decades, until finally they were able to participate in one of the most important cultural actions humanity has ever had; the reading of a book, but you, know, they're not as important as investment bankers who...Sorry. Back to the math.) Right now, agency ebooks of hardcover editions are generally priced at $12.99. With agency titles publishers receive 70% of every copy sold, $9.09. So, every time an agency ebook sale replaces a hardcover sale, meaning every time someone who would have bought the hardcover buys the ebook, the publisher loses $3.90. That is a little bit more than the saved overhead ebooks provide, but given that ebooks at about this price also create sales, meaning people who were not planning on buying the hardcover at all end up buying the ebook, this is a sustainable and perhaps even profitable price point. Really a win-win. Customers who want a cheaper option have it and the industry in general is sustained for those customers who want the more expensive print version. Just like with the prices of print books, which are all pretty much the same across publishers, the arithmetic of publishing generated this number. Nobody needed to collude to come up with it.

And right now, agency paperbacks are also sustainable. For a $14.99 paperback, the publisher gets $7.70 for every print copy sold. Most agency titles in paperback are sold at $9.99 as ebooks, netting the publisher $6.99 for every ebook sold. Again an initial loss, but one that is likely canceled out by new sales and saved overhead.

But the ebooks market could get unsustainable real fast. For example, if that $12.99 price point is shifted by market pressure to $9.99, (and by market pressure I mean, Amazon pressure) publishers will lose $6.00 for every hardcover replacement, meaning the ebooks would have to create about two new sales for every replacement. It's possible, but an awfully risky business model.

Now imagine if Amazon gets control of enough of the ebooks market that they can dictate discount terms to publishers. They were once at 90% of the market and if they are able to sell at dramatic losses again, they might regain that level. I don't think they will raise their ebook prices to consumers, because low prices (sustained by terrible working conditions at their warehouses, not paying state sales tax, and a few ethical and innovative business practices just to spice things up) are kind of their thing. However, they will pressure publishers into giving them profitable discounts based on those price points. Instead of selling those ebooks for a loss or for a 30% commission, they will demand a traditional discount, around 50% of the price they have decided on. Here's what the math says about that.

In that scenario publishers would get $6.50 for every ebook sold at $12.99, meaning they would lose $6.49 for every ebook that replaces a hardcover sale. If Amazon decides that price is $9.99, the publisher would get $5.00 and lose $7.99. For producing the exact same quality product, making the exact same investments and putting in the exact same amount of labor, because a big box store wanted control of everything, the publisher loses $7.99 per unit.

Yes, ebooks buyers buy lots of print and ebooks and yes the cheaper ebooks prices do create sales, but given that most publishers are barely getting by anyway, those loses would put many if not most out of business. (Just to get this out of my head, where are all these filthy rich greedy publishing professionals buying yachts on the backs of downtrodden ebooks buyers? I mean, the best editor in the world makes tons less than a shitty investment bank executive, but it's ebook prices that are the problem. Aneurism prevention) Of course, there's no guarantee Amazon will pursue this particular doomsday model, but at every step on the range of possibility towards that, publishers (mostly the small publishers that make sure books stay interesting) will be left behind, either by going out of business, or by not being sold on Amazon. And nothing Amazon can do, no matter how big it gets, will be able to replace the diversity of voices, ideas, and books, coming out of traditional publishing large and small.

The agency model, was not about profit. It was about survival. It was about monopoly prevention, something the Department of Justice is supposed to deal with. By creating price parity, those publishers diversified the ebooks retail market so that now Amazon only controls about 60% of it. Still pretty monopolostic if you ask me, but it is not so powerful that it can dictate the terms as above. This means that ebooks can find a sustainable market price, one that funds all of the work that goes into producing a book and is a rational reflection of buyers' desire to save money. It also allowed independent bookstores to get in the game, which meant that customers who wanted ebooks and to shop local, now can.

But, Wait, There's More, and It's Math-Free

However, for all of you price-centric buyers, I think there is a possibility of seeing the $4.99 ebook if publishing is stabilized and if you are patient. Here's how.

Think of publishers as taking out a loan on every book they publish; a loan that consists of the advance to the writers, the salaries for everyone else who works on the book like the various editors, graphic designers, publicists, etc, and the general upkeep of the business. Essentially, every book, print or e, puts the publisher in debt a certain amount. When the hardcover edition is released at $25.99, 100% of that debt remains. That's one of the reasons why hardcovers are about $10 more than paperbacks. Yes, their materials cost more, but not $10 more. They are $10 more because they represent the publishers' first chance to pay off that debt. The hardcover edition is responsible for 100% of that book's debt. Readers who want the book NOW, for whatever reason are willing to pay for the value of NOW, but many others will decide to wait.

When the publisher decides the hardcover is no longer selling, they will release the cheaper paperback. At this point, some (very, very rarely all) of that book's debt will be paid off. The paperback is cheaper to make, but not $10 cheaper. It's cost is lowered to encourage sales to readers and because it bears less of that initial debt. Same thing if the book goes to Mass Market.

Theoretically once that debt is fully repaid, which, by the way, ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS, the price of print books could drop even lower, but there are some real logistical hassles to changing the price of a print book and they do have constant overhead in the cost of printing and shipping. Logistical hassles and overhead ebooks do not have. Once that debt is paid, which, might I remind you ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS, ebooks do represent almost total profit. It is at that point that I could see the price of in-print ebooks dropping to $4.99-$7.99, with the publishers and authors splitting the profit.

In short, nearly all ebooks should stay in that $9.99-$14.99 range, but could be allowed to naturally drop in price to that $4.99-$7.99 some people believe the fruit of another human being's years of lost sleep, constant rejection, strained personal relationships, poor performance at work, declining health, flirtations with substance abuse, and other near constant side effects and risks of writing a fucking book, is worth.

Self-Published Ebooks

Another “proof of obsolescence” writers and commenters will often point to in their condemnation of traditional publishing are the $.99 self-published ebooks on offer, mostly at Amazon, however, this is really comparing kiwis and bananas.

The way I see it, self-published ebooks are like the pulp fiction of the 30s, 40s, and 50s; cheaply produced, cheaply available, offering cheap entertainment. And you know what; that's fine. The pulp industry didn't put the rest of publishing out of business because it served different needs. You wanted to read trash, you bought trash at trash prices. You wanted to read something with quality, you paid quality prices. In a perfect world, where Amazon charges sustainable prices for its wares with sustainable discounts for the producers, I don't have a problem with them being the exclusive source for thousands or even millions of self-published “pulp” fiction. It's an entirely different market from traditional publishing and bookselling.

And just like the old pulp fiction, I'm sure there is great writing in the self-published ebooks market, but I certainly don't want to wade through the crap to find it, and that is the primary value-added of traditional publishing and bookselling. Publishers wade through the crap so you don't have to.  (Just say the word "slush" around an acquisitions editor and see what happens.) Many of you will probably point out that traditional publishers still publish crap and you'd be right, but if you came into my store, or just about any independent bookstore in the country, and talked to a bookseller, you'd never end up reading any of it.

The point is digital publishing, self-publishing, traditional publishing, and print publishing can co-exist. We can have an Amazon and a Barnes & Noble, and boutique ebooks stores, and thousands of indie bookstores across the country. There are enough readers. Books are that important. But books aren't important to Amazon. The future power and profitability of market share is the only thing that is.

One Final Word About Cheap Books

After all that I'd hate to give out an insider secret to the writers, bloggers and commenters who believe the only factor that matters is price, but, well, in the interest of journalistic integrity, I feel it is my duty to do so. Here we go.

If price is so goddamn important to you, you never have to pay money for a book. Ever. Just borrow it from your local library. It's the big new book and the waiting list at the library is hundreds of people long? Wait. No waiting list is infinite. Just put your name on it and borrow another book FOR FREE. Your library doesn't currently have it? Ask your local librarian to get it for you. The only known copy of the book is locked in an adamantium box at the North Pole, surrounded by landmines and guarded by Pullman Polar Bears? Ask your local librarian to get it for you, and wait an extra few days for transportation. Librarians are librarians because they want to give books to people. Your librarian will get the book for you. You want it as an ebook? Sure, libraries haven't quite figured out ebook lending yet, but just about every book ever published before 1922 or so is available for FREE as e-book. Just go to Project Gutenberg. You will never run out of great books to read and you will never have to spend a single penny on books.

But you want the newest, hottest book, that everybody is talking about so you don't feel lame at the office holiday party? Well, fucking pay for it. In a currency-based economy, that's what you do when you want something; you pay for it.

Think about it this way. Doing push-ups and sit-ups in your living room is free. So is jogging. Once you know how to do it, so is yoga. Really, you can stay fit and healthy for free if you want to. But if you want access to a range of machines and an occasional professional opinion on how best to use them, you're going to have to pay for a gym membership. Want to take a class because you're interested in something specific? You'll have to pay a little bit more. Want a personal trainer to design a fitness regimen that works best for you, while providing motivation and guidance as you execute it? Well, you'll have to pay even more for that. You can be fit for free, or you can choose to pay for the added-value of a gym. Everybody accepts that.

If we accept that for gyms, why can't we accept that for books.

The Bruins End of Season Wrap-Up

The Bruins have had an interesting season. The opening few weeks were played with a pretty horrible Stanley Cup hangover, which I told everybody to not worry about. Then for a month or so everything clicked and the Bruins were the best team in hockey. Then a long period of average play, that left a lot of fans baffled. Then they woke up for the last month of the season and secured the second seed in the Easter Conference. So here is my wrap up of the second half of the of the 2011-2012 Bruins season.

Yep, looks like 5-on-3 to me.

The Decline: I can tell you the exact moment The Bruins began their slide into mediocrity. It was a Saturday afternoon. Vancouver decided to play their back-up goalie rather than Roberto Luongo. They were the best team in the West but still felt it was important to start getting their excuses lined up, complaining about the start time of the game and adjusting, like every NHL team has to do, often several times a season, to the time difference. If there is a Lex Luthor in the NHL it's the Canucks, and since the Bruins beat them for the Cup, the Bruins have taken on the role of Superman. Claude Julien said all the right things about it just being another game, about nobody getting a Stanley Cup afterward, but the Bruins wanted this one real bad.

The decline began, after Shawn Thornton had been jumped by every Canuck skater on the ice, and a few on the bench. The Bruins rushed to his defense, as every player on every team would have done. When the penalties were sorted out, the Bruins looked up at the scoreboard and found themselves killing a full two-minute 5-on-e. It is the most inexplicable call I have ever seen. (Close second involves the definition of “distinct kicking motion.”) And Milan Lucic had been incorrectly ejected from the game for leaving the bench, which added insult to injury as the replay clearly showed a couple of Vancouver players on the bench reaching over to get a few licks in on Thornton. (The only shots I'm pretty sure they'll ever, ever take at him.) Vancouver scored. The B's never got back on their game. It was clear Vancouver could not play with the B's five-on-five so they didn't. It was the first time in a long time, the B's let themselves play the other team's game, and it set them off kilter for months to come.

Marchand was, rightly, suspended for five games. There was a string of injuries and suspensions, Horton, Ferrence, Peverly, and scattered one and two game nicks, so the Bruins entered a stretch where they almost never played with their full team, making it hard to establish the timing and flow that made them impossible to beat in December. And, though the wins weren't coming in bunches, they were still coming. A lot of teams in the league would have loved to “decline” to .500.

The Bruins were rarely definitively outplayed. Even the 6-1 loss to Buffalo. If you told me seven goals had been scored, showed me clips of the game, and then asked me what I thought the score was, I would have guessed 4-3 someone. In that game, the Bruins would play 5-7 minutes of better or even hockey, then Buffalo would score. Rinse and repeat. This made the decline so frustrating and so difficult to solve. If your team is playing badly and losing, you can do something. But if you're team is playing pretty well and losing, that's an entirely different puzzle.

The Bright Spot: While everyone was figuring out what was going wrong for the Bruins, one thing was going very, very right. Though it wasn't showing up on the score sheet, Milan Lucic turned into an absolute force of nature. Not sure what the breakthrough was, but for the last couple of months he has been bending space time. He figured out how to use his strength and speed together, and now just skates through checks. There might be two or three defensemen in the league (and one of them is Chara) who can actually, physically contain Lucic, but everybody else pretty much just has to hope his centering pass doesn't connect. He's fore-checking better, he's back-checking better, and he completely controls the space he's in. If he turns it up for the playoffs and more of those centering passes start connecting, he could be a Conn Smythe contender.

Close enough to a high-five

The Trade Deadline: It's almost time to start calling Peter Chiarelli one of the best general managers in hockey. On the face of it, the Bruins work at the 2012 trade deadline wasn't remarkable. They picked up aging Brian Rolston from the also ran Islanders, and two defensemen you probably hadn't heard of. Mottau isn't anything special, but he's a warm body at a time when depth at defense is vital for playoff success. But Brian Rolston has 17 points in the 12 games he's played for the Bruins. And Greg Zanon might be the most impressive of the three, playing a lot like a bigger, stronger, Seidenberg. And what did Chiarelli spend to get these players? Honestly, nothing. Steven Kampfer and two guys in the juniors. Three NHL players, two of which have already contributed to the recent success, for a very talented but still not mentally ready Kampfer and two guys who may not even make it to the NHL. Horton, Peverly, Kelley. Now Rolston and Zanon. No matter what happens with the rest of the season, we all owe Peter Chiarelli a high five. (And have you seen this Krug, kid playing defense? He's got some real skills. And Chiarelli traded for Kudobin too.)

The Playoffs: The Bruins aren't the favorites this year, but there's no reason to rule them out. The essentially play playoff hockey all year and despite the injuries still have more depth, at least at forward, than most of the other teams. They still have Chara and Bergeron and Krechi and now Lucic. Thomas has been improving. Caron is beginning to reach his potential, and Rolston is already contributing more than you could have asked. They haven't played well enough for us to expect a repeat, but we didn't expect them to win last year either.

A couple other things about the playoffs. Though I probably won't get to see many of the games, I am really looking forward to the Pittsburg/Philadelphia series. For the first time in years, Philly actually has a goalie (or two) they can rely on. Crosby and Malkin are healthy. Hartnell is developing into a legitimate star. And they both, really, really, want to beat each other. It will absolutely be the best first round series the NHL has seen in a while.

And, I know the Rangers are 3-1 against the Bruins, but I want to see that as the Eastern Conference finals. All four games have been tightly played, entertaining games. The absolute best of contemporary hockey. Regardless of the outcome, seven games of Bruins/Rangers at playoff speed would be an absolute joy. Hopefully, at the end of the playoffs, I'll be able to post another one of these.