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AGoodBook was established in 1997 out of my personal frustration with what used to be the pleasure of reading. Since 1980, a significant portion of the book publishing industry has been bought out by the same holding companies that control the film companies and the music companies. Once books were a forum where diverse people novel ideas and experiences. We have been isolated by corporate marketeers, who have created diverse publishing products for what they perceive to be diverse market segments. This has several implications: We, as readers, no longer share common cultural experiences through new authors and books. Authors dont get published unless a publisher can understand what market segment (race/sex/age/income) will respond to the manuscript. Another aspect of this is what Stephen King (in an essay in the New York Times Book Review, protesting just this phenomenon) called the Son of Lassie Syndrome. The suits attempt to isolate what made a successful book successful. . . and then find other books with the same elements. This is a feeble attempt to eliminate risk; in fact, what is eliminated is art. This is why music and films and books all seem so similar and unexciting, like wet cardboard or used chewing gum. We all have favorite music, films and books that would probably not be distributed today because no suit can imagine who would buy it. This is also why the price of books has doubled in the past ten years - the costs of the corporate mentality and the power of oligopoly to push the price up. AGoodBook is my attempt to restore the importance of books - as art, as culture and as communication.

Website: http://agoodbook.com/