Boos to the elder statesman

In an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, Garrison Keillor writes, "Call me a pessimist, call me Ishmael, but I think that book publishing is about to slide into the sea." One can only assume he didn't feel that way when publishing his twenty-two books, or for that matter (thanks Marjorie for alerting me to this) when opening his independent bookstore in St. Paul.

Keillor sees book publishing as an extension of a class of elites who, now that anyone can have a blog (uh, guilty), are in danger of losing their protected status. At least he gets a little bit funny when describing what will replace it:

The upside of self-publishing is that you can write whatever you wish, utter freedom, and that also is the downside. You can write whatever you wish, and everyone in the world can exercise their right to read the first three sentences and delete the rest.

Self-publishing will destroy the aura of martyrdom that writers have enjoyed for centuries. Tortured geniuses, rejected by publishers, etc., etc. If you publish yourself, this doesn't work anymore, alas.

I can only assume it was his agent's idea to publish this on the first day of BookExpo America, the publishing trade show running through today here in New York. (I'm not at BEA myself, but not because I think publishing is doomed; I had a scheduling conflict. Just so we're clear.) It's a popular event on which to hang speculation about the future of the industry -- I did it myself last year -- and Keillor's beliefs, whatever they are, are more interesting to talk about than whether some British lady accepted some money in a slightly shady manner. But it will eventually be disheartening when Keillor, having already espoused a belief about book publishing, will come out and hawk his own book (and there must be another); it'd be nice if he could criticize without seeming to yank up the ladder after him, you know? That's just bad manners.