At 04:04 PM 8/14/2002 -0400, Casey Rousseau wrote: >SKZB replied to my questions: > > >I can't remember the last time I asked a sales clerk for advice on > > >what to buy, but I can see the point. > > > > No, no, no. I don't mean the sales staff that sells you a book at your > > local bookstore, I mean the sales staff that sells several boxes to the > > jobbers, or a truckload to the chains. > >The light dawneth. Of course! I suppose though this would be smaller >audience that would be easier to give a pronunciation guide to, you really >don't want to have to do so. Patrick is undoubtedly right. I'm trying to figure out why I've been so sensitive about this. The notion that I might make an artistic compromise for commercial reasons irritates me enough that I have to wonder if there is something I haven't been admitting to myself. Well, if so, I still haven't admitted it to myself. The other thing, though, is that there seems to be some sort of preconception of "Big Narsty Publisher forcing Poor Artist to change work in line with commercial requirements." Certainly this happens--in fact, forms of it starting happening right about the time art was invented. But it isn't that simple, and it isn't always the case. The reason I'm so happy with Tor is because the people I work with there actually care about books--all the way from Tom Doherty to the publicity people--as far as I can tell, this is probably even true of the sales staff. Now, as Patrick was working with production, he happened to observe that some of the production people were having a bit of trouble with the name of that book--they stumbled over it, and then became embarrassed. One of the little things that makes a book work is the enthusiasm of the production staff (those who lay out the type, make the cover right, dot the "t"s and cross the "i"s. Patrick concluded that this little bit of embarrassment might have a tiny effect on how everything came down. Also, it might have a tiny effect on those who would go forth to see how many books got into the hands of those who, so far, have never heard from me. He said, "Consider a new title. If you think it important, we'll stay with the one it has, but this is worth thinking about." I thought about it, and decided to change it, because it struck that me that losing a tinge of Paarfi-ism (and I agree with those who say the original title is more Paarfi-like) was a reasonable trade-off for making production people a little happier, and maybe making the sales people a tich more enthusiastic. Okay, that was my choice, good or bad, artist or hack. But to then hear stuff that I took as, "the publisher" (i.e., my friend Patrick) sacrificing artistic integrity for evil marketing considerations annoyed me, and I got rather more irritated about it than I should have, under the circumstances. For that, I apologize. >Looking forward to an early Christmas present. Any chance you know when B&T >will start taking preorders? No, sorry. In other news, the Official Title for the three volume novel is-- (drum roll) _The Miscreant of Cowabunga_