Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Atheists
This is the type of people that have been advocating the Atheistic Lifestyle and making big money by tempting those who are morally weak.
These are the people that get democrats elected by contributing both time and money.
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Puttin' Off the Ritz: The New Austerity in Publishing
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/books/05publ.html?_r=1
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: January 4, 2009
For decades the New York publishing world promised a romantic life of fancy lunches, sparkling parties, sophisticated banter and trips to spots like the Caribbean to pitch books to sales representatives. If the salaries were not exactly Wall Street caliber, well, they came with a milieu that mixed cultural swagger with pure Manhattan high life.
The London Book Fair in 2008. The London and Frankfurt fairs are ostensibly for deal-making, but also involve rounds of parties and dinners.
But that cushy schmooze fest seems to be winding down.
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 Marilyn 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.
Amid a relentless string of layoffs and pay-freeze announcements, book publishers are clamping down on some of the business's most glittery and cozy traditions. Austerity measures are rippling throughout the industry as it confronts the worst retailing landscape in memory.
"This business was never meant to sustain limousines," said Amanda Urban, a literary agent who represents Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison, among other authors. Ms. Urban said she believed Bennett Cerf, a founder of Random House, once said something to that very effect. "At best, you can get a Town Car now and then," she said. "It's gotten out of scale, like a lot of businesses in this country."
Venerable houses including HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Penguin Group, Random House and Simon & Schuster have all announced salary freezes or layoffs, or both. Simon & Schuster canceled its annual holiday party, held for the last few years at Tavern on the Green and scheduled in 2008 for Guastavino's, a splashy banquet hall in Manhattan. One division of Random House had pizza, beer and wine in a room off the cafeteria for its holiday lunch instead of going out for pricey cocktails. Across the city, editors with Four Seasons taste are being asked to scale back on their lunch tabs.
Random House has postponed its spring sales conference and has yet to choose a location. Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman, said one thing was certain: After holding a meeting in Bermuda this year the company "will not be returning there in 2009."
Book sales have deteriorated since the beginning of October, falling about 7 percent compared with the same period the previous year, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 percent of sales. That slide is driving much of the immediate cutbacks, but the publishing industry is also being convulsed by longer-term trends, including a shift toward digital reading and competition from an array of entertainment options like video games and online social networking.
Ms. Urban said some of the more lavish practices could not be sustained by a slow-growth, low-margin industry that can't charge luxury prices. "Books can only support a certain retail price," she said. "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."
But the economic downturn is forcing publishers to scrutinize some of the industry's hoariest traditions. One ripe target: the international book fairs in London and Frankfurt at which publishers and agents gather, ostensibly to make deals. But in reality they spend much of their time making the rounds of parties and dinners.
Many houses that previously have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on flights, hotel bills and cocktail hours are planning to prune the size of the contingents they send to the fairs this year. Similarly, companies are revising their budgets for BookExpo America, the annual spring jamboree at which publishers promote their fall lineups to booksellers.
For authors it means the prospect of smaller advances and fewer books being acquired.
"Through these economic crunches that we're all facing, some of the shibboleths of the business are being looked at with a very hard eye," said Jonathan Burnham, publisher of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins whose authors include Ann Patchett, Barbara Kingsolver and Michael Crichton.
Nobody expects one of the staples of the business — the long lunch — to die off completely because of these straitened circumstances. But publishers, editors and literary agents, who have often been among the best diners in the city, are now reconsidering their favorite restaurants.
"We've all naturally been thinking about whether it's absolutely essential to have a lunch here or there," Mr. Burnham added, "or whether it can be a phone call or a meeting."
This is the type of people that have been advocating the Atheistic Lifestyle and making big money by tempting those who are morally weak.
These are the people that get democrats elected by contributing both time and money.
------------------------------------------
Puttin' Off the Ritz: The New Austerity in Publishing
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/books/05publ.html?_r=1
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: January 4, 2009
For decades the New York publishing world promised a romantic life of fancy lunches, sparkling parties, sophisticated banter and trips to spots like the Caribbean to pitch books to sales representatives. If the salaries were not exactly Wall Street caliber, well, they came with a milieu that mixed cultural swagger with pure Manhattan high life.
The London Book Fair in 2008. The London and Frankfurt fairs are ostensibly for deal-making, but also involve rounds of parties and dinners.
But that cushy schmooze fest seems to be winding down.
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 Marilyn 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.
Amid a relentless string of layoffs and pay-freeze announcements, book publishers are clamping down on some of the business's most glittery and cozy traditions. Austerity measures are rippling throughout the industry as it confronts the worst retailing landscape in memory.
"This business was never meant to sustain limousines," said Amanda Urban, a literary agent who represents Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison, among other authors. Ms. Urban said she believed Bennett Cerf, a founder of Random House, once said something to that very effect. "At best, you can get a Town Car now and then," she said. "It's gotten out of scale, like a lot of businesses in this country."
Venerable houses including HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Penguin Group, Random House and Simon & Schuster have all announced salary freezes or layoffs, or both. Simon & Schuster canceled its annual holiday party, held for the last few years at Tavern on the Green and scheduled in 2008 for Guastavino's, a splashy banquet hall in Manhattan. One division of Random House had pizza, beer and wine in a room off the cafeteria for its holiday lunch instead of going out for pricey cocktails. Across the city, editors with Four Seasons taste are being asked to scale back on their lunch tabs.
Random House has postponed its spring sales conference and has yet to choose a location. Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman, said one thing was certain: After holding a meeting in Bermuda this year the company "will not be returning there in 2009."
Book sales have deteriorated since the beginning of October, falling about 7 percent compared with the same period the previous year, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 percent of sales. That slide is driving much of the immediate cutbacks, but the publishing industry is also being convulsed by longer-term trends, including a shift toward digital reading and competition from an array of entertainment options like video games and online social networking.
Ms. Urban said some of the more lavish practices could not be sustained by a slow-growth, low-margin industry that can't charge luxury prices. "Books can only support a certain retail price," she said. "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."
But the economic downturn is forcing publishers to scrutinize some of the industry's hoariest traditions. One ripe target: the international book fairs in London and Frankfurt at which publishers and agents gather, ostensibly to make deals. But in reality they spend much of their time making the rounds of parties and dinners.
Many houses that previously have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on flights, hotel bills and cocktail hours are planning to prune the size of the contingents they send to the fairs this year. Similarly, companies are revising their budgets for BookExpo America, the annual spring jamboree at which publishers promote their fall lineups to booksellers.
For authors it means the prospect of smaller advances and fewer books being acquired.
"Through these economic crunches that we're all facing, some of the shibboleths of the business are being looked at with a very hard eye," said Jonathan Burnham, publisher of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins whose authors include Ann Patchett, Barbara Kingsolver and Michael Crichton.
Nobody expects one of the staples of the business — the long lunch — to die off completely because of these straitened circumstances. But publishers, editors and literary agents, who have often been among the best diners in the city, are now reconsidering their favorite restaurants.
"We've all naturally been thinking about whether it's absolutely essential to have a lunch here or there," Mr. Burnham added, "or whether it can be a phone call or a meeting."
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