Michael Wolff: “Literate people should boycott books”

Rupert Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff (pictured, via) chastised the publishing industry in a provocative column this week, suggesting that “literate people should boycott books” until publishers stop pushing celebrity memoirs and ghostwritten political books.

Here’s an excerpt: “Publishers publish fake books because, if you have an ‘author’ who has some larger cause to promote, the publisher gets free promotion. What the publisher has traded for such an abundance of promotion is its own brand. HarperCollins does not really believe Sarah Palin has written a valuable book … these are desperate times and real books are an increasingly equivocal proposition anyway, so almost all publishers are willing to engage in the strategic mix-up between real books and fake books.”

Wolff most recently wrote the biography, “The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch.” He also founded the website Newser, where his publishing column was published.

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