How to Survive Stupid Publishers

[steepholm]

Oh, Scholastic, Scholastic, long have I grumbled about the way you divide history into "books for boys" and "books for girls", but even I didn't think you'd go as far as this.

I suppose it's the inevitable consequence of the success of the Dangerous Book for Boys and its distaff spin-offs. To begin with, the Igguldens' efforts seemed charmingly retro, but somewhere along the line the quotation marks faded away, the skin was unzipped, and revealed stood the revivified corpse of Whitney Darrow.

What will become of us?

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Oh dear ... *shakes head*

I note that boys can learn "how to survive a plane crash", while girls can learn "how to surive a crash". Given the rest of the contents, the girls' crash will presumably involve two scooters, both pink.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It's worse than that. I'm afraid the girls' version is actually "How to survive a crush."

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

:-(

[sheenaghpugh]

I was pleased to see this:

"Some positive news: this afternoon, Scholastic posted this message on its website:

Many readers have expressed concerns about our How to Survive Anything titles, and we want to thank you for your passionate responses. The two titles have had very limited distribution to date, and no further copies will be made available."

Maybe it is possible to overestimate the stupidity of the book-buying public.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Possibly the most depressing thing is that they come from an imprint called "Scholastic". Dear oh very dear.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Don't be deceived. They use that name because they only publish the most idiotic books. In the US, they published the Harry Potter books, for instance.