You are correct that Regnery’s business model is both clear and profit-driven. The legal issue for the authors however, isn’t that the sales though bookclubs substitute for bookstore sales at a higher royalty. It’s that Regnery is supposed to treat their subsidiary companies at an arms-length basis, and if they did the authors would have received a higher royalty than they did. It would have been reduced, but not as much.

If they had licensed books to Book of the Month Club, for instance, it would have resulted in a royalty per copy sold by BOMC that the authors split with the publisher. That is the standard in the industry and every pubisher who owns a bookclub treats internal licenses the same way they would one with a third party publisher.

The authors probably have a winning case that all authors ought to be aware of and concerned about. I would expect that the Author’s Guild would support them. If they don’t have a clear cut win, it’s only because they signed contracts that are so far out of industry standards as to be laughable, and they should fire their agents or lawyers for being fools or accept that they are fools for not not having had representation.

What’s delicious here is that the authors, all surely capitalists in tooth and claw, have been taken to the cleaners by cut-throat capitalists. I expect they’ll gladly accept the assistance of the Author’s Guild and other writers’ unions in pressing their case, which they’ll get even if they don’t deserve it.

By the way, bookclub sales and bulk sales through retail booktores don’t count towards placement on bestseller lists. Regnery did this to increase their profits, plain and simple, although they’ll argue that there was pubicity value in what they did. My bet, based on many years in this industry, is that they will end up paying the authors, probably in a settlement.

I’m not sure I buy the theory. We’re probably entering an era in which Democrats are more dominant than they have been, but I’d figure that would be good for the wingnuttiest wingnuts. More targets of anger.

On the other hand, Richard Mellon Scaife’s messy divorce could deal a serious blow to the wingnut welfare economy.

[Note: I’m talking out of my ass here.]

They’ve realised the wheels have fallen off the gravy train – now they’re just raiding it for provisions.

making the point that the wingnuts have seen the writing on the wall for wingnut welfare and are now trying to make hay while the sun is still peeking over the Nov 2008 horizon.

I’d provide the link but SN’s language is so NSFW that I don’t want to risk it on a work PC.

On the other hand the idea of reading Roger Kimball explaining Wittgenstein makes me feel faint.

No joke. I don’t think you get to wear that bowtie until you can furnish a signed statement from God that you have never read, and will never read, anything between the first and last lines of the Tractatus. The back of the left half of the tie says “Die Welt is alles, was der Fall ist,” and the right side says, “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen,” and this way you can tuck your chin into your neck and slur either of them out at a party without anyone being the wiser. The tie also has a valve to spray ink on hostile art professors and allow Kimball to escape quickly in a cab. The only catch is that if he ever meets the man wearing the tie that says “Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt,” that man will destroy him. Or such is my understanding.

1. Game the best sellers lists by subsidized dumping of otherwise unsellable (and unreadable) books.

2. ?

3. Profit (not to be shared with “authors”).

Even assuming a closed system with Richard Mellon Scaife’s trust fund, doesn’t this violate some law of Friedmanomics

Dang it all. You know, there was a time when I knew that. But I was much younger then.

And yes, Karl, Roger’s point is that NYU would be justified in discussing public toilets if the tuition rate were lower. $24,400, I believe, is the cutoff; above that level, one is required to get one’s mind off one’s fundament and discuss more elevated subjects.

Kimball likes that Wittgenstein quotation a lot, but to paraphrase someone else entirely: he keeps using that quotation; I don’t think it means what he thinks it means. On the other hand the idea of reading Roger Kimball explaining Wittgenstein makes me feel faint.

Apologies. Discovered a new label of Irish Whiskey last night …