Dear Self: Stop twittering and blog

I keep coming across these really interesting articles and pieces of information about publishing, books and gender issues. So instead of collecting them or commenting, I take the lazy way out and Reader-add them or tweet about them. I'm working on a couple longer pieces, but just some things to think about:

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Today in The Huffington Post Erica Heller, daughter of Catch-22 author Joseph Heller lamented the whoring out of the publishing industry, which has been a-buzz in the past week about million-dollar advances for Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, Nate Silver, the Bushes, Tina Fey and Sarah Silverman, among others. Heller vents:

"And now, onto that illustrious stage of authors, along with Kurt Vonnegut, James Jones and the rest of the best of the best, strut authoress and author, Palin and Mr. Plumber, with their books certain to be ghosted by some unsung schnooks, manuscripts that will be comprised mostly, I'm betting, of little more than bragging, lying and recycling some very stale air. For their efforts, they will be awarded gargantuan advances, piles of money that could feed several Third World nations for some time."

I understand the ire and this issues - commercialization versus contribution - is what gives me the most pause about publishing. This came up at the Future of the Book lecture I attended at the Newseum last month as well: namely the fact that publishers rely on big-name sells and gamble on advances for celebrities memoirs which are as intellectually void as Heller intimates. I get the impression that too often, when a work comes to the table, the first question isn't "Is it good?" they are "Is it marketable?" and "Will it sell?" 

I know this varies depending on the house, imprint and editor, but the culture of books that reflect our lives today is floudering beneath the surface, obscured by thick, glossy celeb hardcovers. What is the solution? 

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In the world of Book innovation, two new media tools are getting attention:

BookSwim which is being called the NetFlix of books is meeting mixed reviews. CSM's Chapter & Verse had it today. The timing is interesting, as our organization, publishers and booksellers are all  getting out a big "Buy books!" holiday media push (I'll refrain from pimping for now...). 

I'm in the camp noted eventually in the Chapter & Verse story: “How lazy can people be not to be able to go to the library?” Seriously. And what serious reader (serious enough to read 3 books a month) is concerned with "having their house cluttered up by books"?

Then there is DailyLit  something I've known about since attending the AAP intro to pub seminar in September. It got pimped by the WaPo yesterday. DailyLit is awesome - it sends a snippet of a book to your inbox/RSS feed/phone every day. I subscribed Anna Karenina, which I'm reading in actual paperback as well, so I can do double time when I don't have it on-hand. Out-of-copyright books are free, and you can subcribe to new books for around $5-$7. And you can send it to friends. Nothing tells a nerd you care like a snippet of a book via e-mail, right? I know that's the way to my heart...