Jennifer 8. Lee vs Full Disclosure

Earlier this week, digital publishing evangelist Jennifer 8. Lee had an opinion piece published in The Seattle Times. The article appeared just prior to the Frankfurt Book Fair, an event where small, medium, and big-league international publishing insiders buy, sell, or trade assets as well as gain (hopefully) useful information. Lee's piece doesn't say anything new or illuminating about the publishing biz. However, the article's appearance, and what it does not say, are curious. Let me elaborate.

Seattle is home base for Amazon, far and away the most disruptive force in publishing's often insular world. What goes uncited in Lee's piece is her enterprise's connection to Amazon, even though the Seattle-based firm is mentioned twice in the story.

Lee co-founded and runs a self-defined "literary studio" called Plympton. Its vision, according to Plympton's website, is to reinvent "how people experience literature by combining serialized fiction and digital platforms." A little over a month ago, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos launched a line of serialized fiction books that would appear on -- drumroll, please -- Kindle gadgets. Three of the ten titles were from Plympton's stable of assets. Supposedly, according to a Boston Globe story, Plympton and Amazon inked the deal 24 hours before Bezos announced it before a very high-profile audience in Santa Monica. Some have strongly doubted the public version of this story, specifically noting that Amazon's profound lust for secrecy and control would have ruled out any initiative that hadn't been thoroughly calculated for intention and impact.

Lee's Seattle Times opinion piece doesn't mention the Amazon-Plympton dots, never mind bother to connect them. This disingenuous stance, from a former New York Times technology writer, makes me wary of the writer's intention. Just what was the point of this piece? Who was its target? (C'mon, you know in your heart it wasn't the subscribers of The Seattle Times.) According to the thumbnail bio at the end of the piece, she "splits her time between Boston, San Francisco and New York." Hmmm.....no second home in The Emerald City.

There are many unanswered questions in the publishing world. These are just a few of them.

Curt Schllling Firm Lays Off Entire Staff, Stiffs Rhode Island Loan Repayment

The very visible, retired baseball star Curt Schilling has publicly embraced right-wing, Republican politics in recent years. He declared himself a so-called "pro-growth," "pro-business" advocate, and decried government programs as masquerades for socialism.

Meanwhile, Schilling began a video game enterprise called 38 Studios. The firm's original domicile was Massachusetts, where coincidentally Schilling once played major league baseball. Not one to miss an opportunity to cash in, Schilling received a sweetheart loan deal from the state of Rhode Island and its Republican governor to move the former Boston Red Sox star's firm to Providence. The essence of the arrangement was a state-guaranteed $75 million loan. The commercial marriage lasted two years: 38 Studios laid off its entire Rhode Island and Maryland staffs this past week, as reported The Boston Globe and elsewhere.

Schilling, at one point, put in over four million dollars of his own funds to save the failing firm. However, he repaid himself in full with some of the state's loan money before bidding adieu to 38 Studios. Entrepreneurial risk, a perspective Schilling loudly touted as essential to economic vigor and personal virtue, turned out to be less appealing when the pitching ace's company couldn't find the business equivalent of the strike zone. Suddenly, government money, which Schilling had characterized in pernicious terms, became very desirable.

Curt Schilling dodging reporters
in Providence, Rhode Island

What became quite clear in this episode is Schilling's complete indifference toward his employees and toward taxpayers. It's an interesting cautionary tale, with an upcoming presidential election focusing on how a corporate raider's business acumen will somehow translate into Lincolnesque leadership. When it comes to financial risk, one can cite far too many examples, such as Schilling and selected Wall Street investment bankers, who talk the talk, but rarely walk the walk. It's so much easier and profitable to simply fleece governmental agencies and programs after a business rolls snake eyes.