I wrote about Gerard Jones and his directory of trade publishers. This has generated a few comments which say what a good thing he is - and I am sure he is - but I asked a question: Why does he bother? He hasn't responded in the comments section but he has emailed me this reply and in the interests of freedom of speech and assuming he has no objection here it is:

'Richard Charkin has a blog, upon which he had this to say about one of my innocent little e-mails and this to say about me:

I don't think anyone hates Gerard and certainly no-one that I know of minds his publishing names etc. Actually nobody gives a damn about him.The question is why does he bother?!

Why he bothers is that books have become "product," merely another means to make nothing but money...not art, not truth, not beauty, nothing worth anything but money. Books themselves don't matter a whit, how much money they generate is all. With the right packaging, enough endorsements, a fair amount of expensive hype and a modicum of proof-reading, any piece of unreadable drivel can make some short-term money. That's the publishing industry's stock in trade. It's the same as the salami industry. There are truly great salamis out there that nobody's ever going to get to eat 'cause you don't see 'em advertised on the telly. The Audio Book of Ginny Good is a greater literary experience than everything Macmillan has published in the last twenty years combined but nobody's ever gonna listen to it 'cause nobody can make any money off it. It's free. That's anathema. G.'

Well, I think Gerard is wrong. The publishing industry is full of people who care about books. He wants to believe the opposite simply because his proposals haven't been accepted as widely as he'd have liked. There are always two explanations of failure. One is that you need to try harder or get better. The other is that the world is conspiring against you. The latter is better for the ego. The former is probably the more likely.