As the article points out:

Just two weeks before announcing staff cuts and a substantial corporate restructuring in December, the publishing giant Macmillan gathered its sales and marketing staff at the historic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego —where Billy Wilder filmed Tony Curtis wooing , HarMarilyn Monroe in “Some Like It Hot” — to talk about titles on the spring lists. Between marathon meetings to discuss plans for new books, the sales reps were invited to take part in wine tastings and spa treatments.This year the meetings will be held via Webcam. In a memo to staff members announcing the layoffs on Dec. 15, John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, said the company would hold only one of its three annual sales conferences in person, and the other two would be conducted on the Web and by telephone.

It goes on:

Venerable houses including HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Penguin Group, Random House and Simon & Schuster have all announced salary freezes or layoffs, or both.

Nielsen has identified a 7 percent drop in sales compared with the same period the previous year, and signs that it’s only going to get worse.  But for all of the major or subtle changes in the industry, it appears some things will never change, such as the arrogance of agents: ”It’s not like you have books that can be Manolo Blahniks and books that can be Cole Haan. Books are books. A book by James Patterson costs the same as a book by some poet.”

Ah, to own the wonderful works of “some poet.”  Isn’t it delightful that the same personalities who once were some of the strongest personalities and names in the industry are now, en masse, clumped together with a mass-market paperback sales maven?  But hey, sales dictate attitudes, so put down that company card, crack open that secondhand newspaper and read on to see what changes come next.  My guess is that curtailing cash advances for Mr. Patterson will do more to cut costs than cognizance of the effect of supply and demand on a now identified product niche market, but I’m not the one getting paid to lounge at a resort and talk shop.

On the plus side, we saw history being made left and right: Barack Obama elected as the first black president of the United States.  There’s nothing I can write about this that hasn’t been said already, but wow, what a spectacular event that was.  It’s nice to see that your fellow citizens have the ability to surprise.

Before that Michael Phelps (yes he has a book) was on TV 24/7 as he dominated swimming in a way I haven’t seen since Flipper.  And on the plus side his voice was MUCH less annoying.  But seriously, the Olympics came and captured us like no other event really can, with everything from table tennis, to archery, to US gold in basketball, to the ever spectacular running (Usain Bolt anyone?  Have you ever seen anything like that?!)

In the middle we had a “super collider” to help us figure out black holes, which didn’t work (and didn’t destroy the world as some suspected).  I don’t know how to feel about this, but the pictures are AMAZING.

But 2008 wasn’t all wine and roses.  We had a cyclone in Myanmar take 100,000, an earthquake in China with a toll of 60,000, terrorism in Mumbai and the fighting in Gaza raging on. The literary community also felt the loss of such luminaries as Randy Pausch (Last Lecture writer), Alexander Solzhenitsyn (exposer of the Gulag in Russia), Michael Crichton (writer/producer), Tim Russert (TV personality), Bobby Fischer (chess star), Sir Edmund Hillary (first climber of Everest) and Bill Melendez (Peanuts animator).

Don’t get down reader.  Let’s talk numbers.  We have officially raised over $5.2 million for global literacy.  We’ve sent 1.4 million books to non-profit literacy programs (including over 1 mil to Africa).  We’ve saved over 8,100 TONS of paper from landfills.  And all this was possible by having 200+ of the smartest and hardest working folks in the land as employees.

2008 will be remember by many as a year of new beginnings–huge changes in business and huge changes in government–but may it be remember by all as a year where we all did what we could to make it better.  And it’s only going to get better in 2009.

10. Feeling Connected – Through the wonders of Facebook it’s so easy to know what’s going on in the company. At 200+ people we’re right on the fringe, but it’s still like middle school where you know everyone–or at least have heard a slightly incriminating story about them–and thus are comfortable wishing anyone a happy birthday (even at the UK office!), new birth (to Casey and Justin’s newborn!), marriage (way to go Dustin!), or holidays (everyone!).

9. The Employee Discount – I would be bankrupt if it weren’t for the sweet discount that we get for being the loyal horde that is BWB employees. It’s just that simple.

8. Customer Service – Have you ever had a problem with an order? If you’re one of the few who have you’ve encountered our studly team of CS rockstars, you know that they’re a rare kind. They don’t just want to talk to you, they won’t rest until your problem is sorted. Don’t believe me? Ask them sometime for the feedback the get every week; it’s unbelievable. The head of CS and I once got very lost, very late on a Saturday night and tried to wander back to where I was staying for probably two hours. You know what we talked about? What he wanted to do to make his division better. Seriously. For two hours. This was at probably 3am on side streets in South Bend, IN. That’s devotion. And maybe insanity.

7. Account Reps – These are the folks that actually get the books in the door and allow us to be the extraordinary machine that we are. I once was an “account rep” of sorts (as a somewhat prehistoric “Regional Director”) and my fondest memories and most ridiculous stories are from this time. The ATL office is full of incredible people holding it down for BWB and everyday surpassing what we thought was possible when I was trying to coordinate NY, CT and Ontario. Also, together we locked down a karaoke bar in Goshen, IN in a legendary group effort where “The Online Bookstore with a Soul” became “The Online Bookstore with Soul.”

6. Leadership – I like the leadership at this company so much that I’m not going to make a joke about Notre Dame football (that’s love right there). But in all honesty when you have 2 cofounders who play ultimate, a CEO like David “D-Murph” Murphy, Xavier/Frank “my carbon footprint is smaller than yours” Helgesen and Kreece “Christopher” Fuchs (as if Chris is his real name), and now the funniest accountant in all of Georgia, CFO Paul Sansone, you wake up everyday a little more comfortable with the company is being run. Does your company have a “thinking disc” to throw whilst making important decisions? Yeah.

5. The Green House – The warehouse is a surreal collection of bibliophiles, Fightin Irish, and all quality individuals. You should see what the scanners have to do everyday. They never get the credit they deserve, scanning in hundreds of books every hour(!) Sadly, us out of towners only get 1-2 times in the Green House each year, but it’s a pleasure watching the heart of this company beat on a given day. It’s amazing. Seriously. On this note, the first time I went to the warehouse, Casey taught me how to scan in books, at the entry level in the company, and now she’s the head of the pricing team. Isn’t that so cool?

4. The San Francisco Office – The grandest office of them all. Better World Books would just be a warehouse full of books in Indiana if it weren’t for this group getting people to know we exist and buy books from us. Sure, we get a bad rap for a bunch of things, including the fact that people have no idea what I actually do on a daily basis (it’s not just write on the blog, naysayers) and other reasons that I’m not at freedom to mention, but it’s a simple fact, the SF office is making it happen. Don’t believe me? Did you see what betterworld.com looked like before (note: it was like a undergrad CS project trying to make the Google website using giant print)?

3. Our Literacy Partners – Books for Africa, Room to Read, the NCFL, Worldfund and Invisible Children, have you seen these folks? And now, we see a great opportunity, invite Invisible Children to the warehouse, watch the video, vote on partnering with them, undergo a vetting process on their books and BOOM we have a fantastic new partner. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting people from each group, organizing bookdrives for each group, and publicizing them whenever possible, and I can say without any delay that these are some of the most dedicated and hard-working people in the biz. We could all learn from the hustle that each of these groups put in everyday.

2. The Mission – What can I say? This one gets me up in the morning and puts me to sleep with a smile at night. We’ve given over $5.2 mil to literacy groups, we’re saved thousands of tons of paper from landfills, and we’ve done all this while providing over 200 people with benefits and the money to pay their rent.

1. The People – You’ll notice there’s a common thread in all my responses: the people. The worst part about this job is that I only get to see the other offices 1-2 times per year. Every summer at the company meeting, we all get together and what occurs is a weeklong explosion of high-powered brainstorming, fast paced numbers, previews of all the fantastic new plans and a collage of kickball, tossing the disc, going out to the pool hall and rocking the ‘Backer/someone’s house/backyard/the Jameson (or whatever it’s called now) all hours.

I’ve had a bunch of jobs before this one, and you can say whatever you want, but I’d without question put up our worst times together against anyone else’s best. If I want a smile, I can just open up my address book, look through at who is doing what and be amazed about the collection of talent we have in every position. It’s like the ‘96 Bulls over here. The starters won’t let you get anything and the bench is still better than your squad.

What other company could I send out Top 10 lists for people to vote on and get a colorful debate from different parts of the country all over my email? In what other company could I not embarrassedly admit that I’m a literary misfit in comparison to some of my coworkers (I’d hate to take a literary pub quiz against ARC)? And this doesn’t even mention our savvy book arbitrage, the downright sexy Goshen store (and the fact that we have more fans on facebook than Barnes & Noble or Powell’s means other people must like us too).

If you got all the way down here, then you know how blessed I am, and truly all of us at Better World Books are. Have a fantastic holiday season and let’s see what we can make happen in 2009.

It’s a phrase you’re going to be hearing quite a bit these days.  “Get selfish.”  Forget about what you want to do for others, it’s time you focused on what’s important: your rent, your job, i.e. you.

“Get selfish.” You’re going to hear about how you should change the focus, how now is the time to be serious about buckling down and hear the government talk of cuts in spending that include either the proverbial “hatchet” or “scalpel” to limit the issue.  You will be told to be careful with your spending and your assets.  You will lament your 401k, and if you haven’t done any retirement planning you will be told how dire the situation really is.

You’re going to hear “Get selfish.”  make time for you.  “Get selfish.” Give less, save more.  “Get selfish.” Do what you need to do.

What you’re not going to hear is about how hard it is for those elsewhere.  You’re not going to hear about the people who, forget about a mortgage, have never had clean water.  You’re not going to hear about people with diseases and no access to doctors.  You’re not going to hear about people in the US who drop out of high school to keep a roof over sibling’s heads.  You’re not going to hear about kids who never had a chance.  You’re not going to hear about the people who need your help the most.  Now.

If it’s getting hard for you, imagine what it’s like for those in need.

If you can connect with that–if you can feel for the people who will really be missing out this holiday season, that’s the way to be “recession-proof.”  The environment and people aren’t things that need to be focused on “when you have a chance,” they need to be as much of a priority as anything else.  These are not tertiary concerns.  The challenge in these times is to see further ahead than that next rent check, believe me, I know it’s hard.  But if not us, then who?  If not now then when?

So get selfish, readers.  Get selfish about improving your world and everyone in it, get selfish about making your environment cleaner, and get selfish about what mark you will leave on society, not about what mark society tries to leave on you.

Across the pond, Two Ravens Press weighs in on the book industry these days:

The further demise of the book review is predicted by Robert McCrum in The Observer today.  “The book world is in full-blown transition,’ he says. ‘Blogs are rampant; Google is digitising every text going; e-readers are transforming the experience of reading. Books (and book reviewing) have been pushed to the margin. It doesn’t help that in a global recession publishing is also feeling the pinch.”

It’s an interesting question, whether blogs really are supplanting professional critical reviewing. I’m a big fan of really good serious literary blogs, which take the level of discussion about books to a place that a typical review, no matter how well done, can’t. A blog enables you to have a debate about books: what worked for you as a reader and what didn’t, and that’s a very valuable thing.

I agree with the value of book blogs (natch!) but would contest that there will always be a place for good writers.  I would go so far as to suggest that this is could become the Age of the Great Writer, not the demise of their kind.  In a world where Google has introduced grading of search results and the Digg/Web 2.0 model takes over, good content, not just high paid searches, will reign.  And at the end of the day, good content is a product of its author and their understanding of the crazy world of Social Media.  While before, a great writer in Chicago could never do better than the Chicago Tribune, or a great writer in small town could never write for the biggest beats in the biggest towns, now writing is without location and it won’t be an issue of “I read the New York Times for arts and the WSJ for business,” it will become “I read Maureen Dowd for politics, Thomas Friedman for economics, I listen to Amy Goodman for further political discussion and I love so and so’s articles about…”  I would find it incredibly refreshing for the best authors in journalism to get more respect as personalities and marketable skilled writers rather than just a feature of a behemoth newspaper.

I spoke to a writer (off the record) from the San Francisco Chronicle the other evening and he said “Newspapers saw radio and did nothing.  They saw TV and they did nothing.  Why would they think the internet would be any different?  They saw the web and did nothing–that had won all these battles before–but now they’re underwater, hopelessly behind with print and web still being treated as two different products while the other industries, who potentially don’t stand to gain as much as newspapers, move with the tide.”  Great writers will always have a place, but they’re going to have to embrace the tremendous sea change that has occured.  You moved away from your typewriter, you can make this shift too.

It goes further to describe the demise of the non high profile author, which is a well noted and a rather sad part of the industry today.  Neil Simon once said of show business that “You can make a killing but you can’t make a living” and it appears that we are headed that way in books.  I only hope that something will change to give promising authors a chance.  I’m sure plenty of people are anxiously awaiting the next Danielle Steele or the next Twilight edition, but for my  purposes you can throw all that stuff out the window.  I just pray that the next David Eggers, David Foster Wallace or “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” doesn’t get buried under the incredible hubris of bestsellers and Oprah’s Book Club selections, regardless of the industries fledgling numbers.  I hate watching the book world turn into late 90’s music where the major question was not “Is it good?” but “Will it make us money?”  Sigh.