Updates on earlier stories

The weekend brought two newspaper articles from the Daily/Sunday Telegraph stable which repeat facts and ideas that have been stated here more than once, but which are well worth reading for the additional details that they supply. (Links provided by book2book.)

First, Luke Johnson, an experienced businessman who is currently Chairman of Channel 4, gives us his take on publishing (based on his one-time ownership of a publishing company). It is, he says, 'a barely rational industry'. Authors and publishers alike are poorly paid. Yup. No argument there.

And Guy Dennis provides a highly detailed report of the Penguin warehouse disaster. This tells us that the decision to proceed (with software systems which failed to work) was made at Pearson board level and involved both Dame Marjorie Scardino, the chief executive, and John Makinson, the head of Penguin.