I can see the lumps already, probably because I'm not getting actually rewarded for not being enough of a shithead — or at least the right kind of prominent shithead. It could be, too, that I'm anticoal on "the science (as stated by those lacking obvious conflicts of interest) says there's global warming" grounds. At least at the moment, I'm not desperate enough to burn the coal to keep warm for a few minutes in Northern Hemisphere winter weather.
- On what should be a cheerier note but really isn't, perhaps a visit to a bookstore might be appropriate. Even one governmentally approved as an instrument of postcolonial cultural imperialism (fully aligned with past governmental appropriational bullshit that was pointed at durned furriners). In the relatively near future, it'll be more poorly stocked with the most-affordable editions… at least, and even increasingly, in disfavored subcategories like the misnamed "genre fiction" (the very name of which reflects disrespect for substance and inept recharacterization depending upon definitions that shift within the same paragraph — even same sentence — of the "industry analysis"). Of course, given the source of that last, maybe a little skepticism regarding its conflicts of interest is appropriate.
- Perhaps as much skepticism as should regard this piece of utter crap from the same source.
"Writers create comp lists, look at databases, ask friends, read acknowledgements...and yet, if our data is correct, they are not identifying the correct agent for them 66% of the time."
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Representatives from Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Neighborhood Literary, GO Literary, DeFiore & Company, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Laura Gross Literary Agency, Aevitas Creative Management, Writers House, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency, United Talent Agency, Curtis Brown, and Creative Artists Agency are also among those participating.
Actually, the failure of the authors to blithely accept "expression of interest" as sufficient grounds to inquire further probably reflects that the authors actually are doing research — just not the kind of research that these arrogant conflicted assholes want them doing. Of that list of publishing-industry actors that (by implication) were not being contacted enough after expressing interest, a significant plurality have been either found liable or publicly criticized with facially-sufficient confirmation for engaging in fraud/fraud-like conduct with their own author-client/business-partners in the past few years. That they're being avoided by some authors indicates to me that some of those authors are doing appropriate research — which pleasantly surprises me, given the historical credulousness of the author community regarding business matters, especially when inexperienced with commercial publishing. It's not just about getting "an offer to commercially publish"; it concerns business relationships that, thanks to historical unfair negotiating tactics and abuse of monopoly power, frequently extend for the life of the copyright. I just wish things like this were rarer than the suppressed public notice implies (not to mention confidential settlement agreements, confidential arbitrations, and bullying).
To put it another way: Interest from this guy wouldn't convince me to send him even ideas that would support a Desny claim, let alone handle my money. I've done my research (well, professionally so, but still). Commercial publishing is actually no different from/better than H'wood (or N'ville) in that. That PW and the "matching service" credulously given free publicity in that article would rather not acknowledge that results directly from their own conflicts of interest.
- Or you could just consider vendors with conflicts of interest. This conflict arises from both fairly obvious sources (the 'zon's own programs and sale/provision of material to other "GAI" providers, all of which presumably provides substantial compensation distressingly similar in concept to this), and less-obvious ones like "fundamental legal-basis misinterpretation." The latter is a bit complex, but it concerns the rights of a licensee (the publisher) to consent to conduct outside the licensor's (the author's) pre-agreement conception of what is in the license — and, more to the point, a sublicensee's iteratively-reflexive misconduct. One can't excuse everything by claiming it's marketing-and-publicity support… not even in the abstract, not even in the law-journal article and law-school-casebook context that doesn't consider the considerable effort, financial, and emotional costs to the plaintiff of objecting to 500kg gorillas with both ability and propensity to blacklist.
We now return you to our program of actually appropriate and relevant holiday music.