Apparently yesterday's agent-hating editor inspired a number of his or her colleagues to vent similar sentiments, one of whom writes in anonymously to reveal just how deep the hostilities run:

"Let me tell you what happens when an agent submits a loser at my house," this person writes. "If the book was sold as the next best thing to sliced bread and does not sell, we institute Project Freeze Out... no matter what the agent coming calling with next, we simply don't buy it. The agent could have God as an author and we would still reject it. Decisions at my house are made by committee and we black list the agent for weeks or perhaps months. If we are going to lose money, then the agent needs to lose money, or at least an opportunity. We never say this to the agent and we come up with some silly reason not to purchase the book. But the real truth is if that same book was represented by another agent we might have bought it."

If this letter is authentic—does it sound authentic to you?—I think we've got a hint at why the industry is "broken." Another editor writes in with a somewhat more mature appraisal of his or her working conditions. "All the editors here are under the gun to make numbers and when those numbers are not made, some editors feel like pulling the trigger," this anonymous correspondent says, running through the "we've been reduced to cogs in a giant corporation" argument.

"Look at a book like The Secret, which any rational person would think is just a bunch of BS," Editor #2 continues. "The book is all marketing, yet that one book made the year for the publisher. That is what publishers are looking for... The industry has done readers a great disservice, and there are times that I am ashamed to be an editor. I am ashamed to play a part in business that cares so much for money, yet pays its people so little. I am ashamed to produce products that are merely a sales pitch for a seminar or product, when real products, i.e. good books, fall by the wayside."

If you really hate what the industry is making you do so much, as Robert Townsend said in Hollywood Shuffle, "there's always work at the post office." Me, I prefer the engaged optimism of people like Johnny Temple and Daniel Halpern, who encourage editors to be the change they want to see.