In a feat of utmost unexamined irony, the habitual bashers of corporate monster Amazon over at Melville House report on how Hachette has now resumed gobbling up literary properties like some sort of … uh … corporate monster?

Hachette bought Black Dog & Leventhal yesterday …

Hachette’s had a big year. About four months ago, the company did not end up buying Perseus … We all assumed it had to do with the Amazon standoff … All of that ended last week … So who will Hachette acquire next?

Hachette US bought the Hyperion backlist, and formed Hachette Books to start acquiring in a similar vein. Hachette UK bought Constable & Robinson in February and Quercus in March. They’re buying a whole lot of small nonfiction publishers with strong backlists.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Hachette takes a moment from devouring everything in sight to reward its boot-licking minions at the Authors Guild for standing by them against Amazon?

But … probably not, as the hilarious Dan Meadows explains (after quoting comments from Authors Guild president Roxana Robinson):

“It is our hope that Hachette, in light of the loyalty its authors have shown throughout this debacle, takes this opportunity to revisit its standard e-book royalty rate of 25 percent of the publisher’s net profits.”

Sweet Jesus! Tell me you’re not that naive. Loyalty?! What part of “billion dollar corporate negotiation” don’t you understand? You hope, in light of your “loyalty”, that they take this opportunity to revisit that standard? What opportunity would that be? The one where they’ve settled up with Amazon, already have you all under contract at that standard, and don’t need to name-drop you morons in an obviously coordinated PR assault on a rival anymore?

The opportunity to do a hell of a lot more than “hope they revisit the standard” was the past seven months when Amazon had Hachette over a barrel and the other publishers were all worried they were next. The only opportunity you have now is for them to laugh in your face.

Yup. And when they do, don’t get made when we say we told you so.

Michael Bourne at The Millions takes on the egalitarian myth behind teaching the craft of writing:

[T]he problem with craft talks isn’t what is being said from the podium. The problem is the unspoken message of the genre of the craft talk itself, which is that one becomes a successful writer by mastering a series of discrete elements of literary craft. You learn to keep your scenes short. You gain a deeper understanding of the role of voice in narrative fiction. You remember to always put a little bad in your good characters and a little good in your bad characters, and — poof! — one day you open your laptop and discover you have written A Visit from the Goon Squad.

This is a species of magical thinking. It is, of course, impossible to write a good book without a deep appreciation of how language and stories work, but it doesn’t follow that successful writers have simply worked at it harder than less successful ones or that their understanding of the craft of fiction is any more acute. What successful writers have that their less successful counterparts do not is talent. [emphasis mine]

This inconvenient fact offends our sensibilities because it is elitist and because it means that for all but a very lucky few of us, literary greatness remains beyond our grasp. A belief in the transformative properties of craft also undergirds an ever-growing industry of creative writing education that, one way or another, now pays the bills for most working poets and literary writers. For these reasons, we have constructed a culture of discussing creative writing designed to skirt the obvious. Because craft exists outside us and can be improved through effort, a focus on craft gives us a way to talk about bad writing that is less hurtful to the writer. The successful writer is saved from having to tell the less successful one, “Sorry, but you have no talent.” Instead, the successful writer can say, “You need to work on your craft.”

This analysis coheres neatly with what I have said about the “Authorhood of All Readers” myth and the dangers of pyramid scheme dynamics in a publishing culture wherein writing teachers teach writing to writers who will primarily go on to teach other writers (to be writing teachers).

To read the rest of Bourne’s fascinating piece, check it out here!