Electric Speed - [Electric Speed] The death convo game

A note from Jane

How much is a book worth?

For the book’s author, the worth may well be incalculable.

A commercial publisher, though, can and does make a calculation of worth.

About 10 years into my corporate career, I acquired and published a book that had become not just a failure but a loss leader. For reasons too complicated to explain here, the book’s entire print run had to be destroyed and we stopped selling the book. Quite naturally, the author sought a reversion of rights. Since my company had no further interest in the book (we knew when to cut our losses), this seemed like an easy request to grant.

But my boss was adamant: unless the contract necessitated immediate reversion (and it didn’t), the author would have to return the advance to get the rights back. "You don’t give away a sack of sugar for free," she said.

I was speechless. This book had no further value to us and I found it spiteful not to release it. In fact, I knew we’d lose the relationship with the author if we held onto our "sack of sugar." But my boss did not value the author relationship as I did. She argued that if someone else saw value in that book, then they should pay for that value.

Not long after, I walked away from corporate publishing into nonprofit literary publishing. There, the sack of sugar we tightly held onto was our image. Publishing opportunities with us were scarce and often went to those who could bolster our reputation. Such things help with fundraising and institutional support.

When you take away the money motivation for publishing, it doesn’t automatically make the operation more ethical. Rather, it creates a new system of calculation. I was able to play the corporate publishing game for 12 years. For all its flaws, I found it straightforward, with rules I understood. The nonprofit literary game? I could only handle it for 2 years.

One of my favorite Alan Watts lectures is on the topic of death. He says, "We live in a culture where it has been rubbed into us in every conceivable way that to die is a terrible thing. And that is a tremendous disease from which our culture, in particular, suffers."

The Death Convo Game offers daily questions on the subject of death with friends and family. As Watts says, death is one of the great events of life. Don’t turn away from it. (The game is available for free through June 14.)

Electric Speed - [Electric Speed] The death convo game

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