{"id":1458,"date":"2014-08-12T18:42:52","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T01:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/?p=1458"},"modified":"2014-08-14T18:16:03","modified_gmt":"2014-08-15T01:16:03","slug":"amazon-and-orwell-and-penguins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/08\/amazon-and-orwell-and-penguins\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon and Orwell and Penguins (Updated)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"weapons<\/a>By now most everyone who follows artsjournal.com<\/a> and the Amazon dispute has heard of its strange use of George Orwell in its (shockingly mishandled) dispute with the publishing sector. The New York Times<\/em> reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The freshest part of Amazon\u2019s call to arms was the history lesson. It recounted how the book industry hated mass-market paperbacks when they were introduced in the 1930s, and said they would ruin the business when they really rejuvenated it. Unfortunately, to clinch its argument, it cited the wrong authority:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe famous author\u00a0George Orwell<\/a>\u00a0came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if \u2018publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.\u2019 Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

This perceived slur on the memory of one of the 20th century\u2019s most revered truth-tellers might prove to be one of Amazon\u2019s biggest public relations blunders since it\u00a0deleted copies of \u201c1984\u201d from readers\u2019 Kindles<\/a>\u00a0in 2009.<\/p>\n

A moment\u2019s web searching would have revealed to the Amazon Books Team, which is credited as the source of the Hachette post, that it was wildly misrepresenting this \u201cfamous author.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Orwell wrote that line, he was celebrating paperbacks published by Penguin, not urging suppression or collusion. Here is what\u00a0the writer actually said<\/a>\u00a0in The New English Weekly on March 5, 1936: \u201cThe Penguin Books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if the other publishers had any sense they would combine against them and suppress them.\u201d<\/div>\n

Orwell then went on to undermine Amazon\u2019s argument for cheap e-books. \u201cIt is, of course, a great mistake to imagine that cheap books are good for the book trade,\u201d he wrote, saying that the opposite was true.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cheaper books become,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthe less money is spent on books.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of buying two expensive books, he said, the consumer will buy three cheap books and then use the rest of the money to go to the movies. \u201cThis is an advantage from the reader\u2019s point of view and doesn\u2019t hurt trade as a whole, but for the publisher, the compositor, the author and the bookseller, it is a disaster,\u201d Orwell wrote.<\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s post gave Orwell a big weekend on the Internet. \u201cAltering Orwell\u2019s words to fit your agenda seems rather … Orwellian,\u201d Josh Centers, a tech writer, said in a Twitter message. \u201cOnly a fool or a businessman would twist that quote so completely,\u201d wrote John Biggs in TechCrunch. Glenn Fleishman, a technology journalist, addressed Amazon directly via Twitter: \u201cHe was using irony. It\u2019s a literary device. You sell books. What is wrong with you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Orwell’s own words are here<\/a>, in a review of a new batch of Penguins. In his final paragraph he writes:<\/p>\n

In my capacity as reader I applaud the Penguin Books; in my capacity as writer I pronounce them anathema. Hutchinson are now bringing out a very similar edition, though only of their own books, and if the other publishers follow suit, the result may be a flood of cheap reprints which will cripple the lending libraries (the novelist\u2019s foster-mother) and check the output of new novels. This would be a fine thing for literature, but it would be a very bad thing for trade, and when you have to choose between art and money well, finish it for yourself.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My artsjournal.com<\/a> blog neighbor Scott Timberg writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I give St. George points for prescience here \u2014 even if it took a while for his prediction to come true.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But … surely what is interesting is that Orwell was not<\/em> prescient. His forecast for the impact of paperbacks on the future of publishing, of libraries, of the output of new novels, all turned out to be completely wrong. I am not knocking Orwell – he is my favorite essayist, and I still have the old paperback (Penguin!) essay collections Inside the Whale<\/em> and Decline of the English Murder<\/em> from my undergraduate days, and when it comes to trying to predict the effects of a disruptive new company, well, nobody knows anything. If anything, a lesson here in humility on trying to predict the long run effects of new firms and technologies?<\/p>\n

UPDATE: from George Packer <\/a>at the New Yorker<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Orwell didn\u2019t have much of a head for business, and his powers of prediction sometimes failed him. In another 1936 piece, \u201cBookshop Memories,\u201d he wrote, \u201cThe combines can never squeeze the small independent bookseller out of existence as they have squeezed the grocer and the milkman.\u201d Around the same time, he argued that the Nazi threat wasn\u2019t as dangerous as a war of the \u201cimperialist powers.\u201d (He changed his mind about that.) So maybe Orwell was wrong about paperbacks, too. But then, so is Amazon.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By now most everyone who follows artsjournal.com and the Amazon dispute has heard of its strange use of George Orwell in its (shockingly mishandled) dispute with the publishing sector. The New York Times reports: The freshest part of Amazon\u2019s call to arms was the history lesson. It recounted how the book industry hated mass-market paperbacks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-issues","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/penguin-books.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dIW5-nw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1557,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/10\/is-amazon-com-a-monopoly\/","url_meta":{"origin":1458,"position":0},"title":"Is Amazon.com a monopoly? (updated October 10)","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"October 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"In a comment on my previous post, on Amazon and what I saw as overheated rhetoric regarding censorship, BobG wrote: Arguing over a definition of censorship is avoiding the actual issue. 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It's a narrow question, since in any dispassionate analysis 'Is Streaming Good for People Who Listen to Music?' would also factor into the evaluation of this technology. That said, let me try to broaden the debate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"looks nice to me","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/stream.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/stream.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/stream.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/stream.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/stream.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/stream.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2191,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2017\/04\/on-charging-admission-at-the-met\/","url_meta":{"origin":1458,"position":2},"title":"On charging admission at the Met","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"April 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The New York Times reported that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is looking at options to make its \"suggested\" entry fee into something a little stronger than a hint, at least for people who live outside the city or state. A few years ago Derek Thompson reported that about six\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"i should pay","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/met.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/met.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/met.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":932,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2013\/07\/do-cultural-districts-matter\/","url_meta":{"origin":1458,"position":3},"title":"Do cultural districts matter?","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"July 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"At the Art Newspaper, Adrian Ellis claims that they do: Few cities command the accolade \u201cgreat\u201d or even \u201cliveable\u201d without a significant cultural presence. Today, whether the question is \u201cWhere is the best place to bring up your family?\u201d, \u201cWhere do knowledge workers congregate?\u201d or \u201cWhat attracts inward investment?\u201d, \u201cCities\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"walkable?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Dallas_Arts_District_Opera_House_construction_Meyerson-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3773,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2025\/04\/what-to-do-with-the-nea-make-it-conservative\/","url_meta":{"origin":1458,"position":4},"title":"What to do with the NEA? 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He writes about the National Endowment for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image-1.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image-1.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image-1.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image-1.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":965,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2013\/07\/amazon-and-the-independents\/","url_meta":{"origin":1458,"position":5},"title":"Amazon and the independents","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"July 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Two stories linked by artsjournal.com today about Amazon: gigaom.com (?) on how Amazon is further cutting prices on hardbacks, and the American Booksellers Association upset that President Obama held a major speech on jobs at an Amazon warehouse. Observations: First, while I possess no special insights into what goes on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"can I help you find something?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/youve_got_mail_063udz92-300x168.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}