From: firstinitiallastname@texas.net   
      
   HooDoo U. wrote:   
   > Why is it that when one writer comes up with   
   > a new book, a dozen others follow?  Not long ago   
   > I read a pretty good book about Buffalo Bill Cody   
   > and his "tribe" and now I see that novelist Larry   
   > McMurtry has come out with his own version. Very   
   > odd, since the other authors have published their   
   > own accounts in the recent past, beating McMurtry   
   > to the punch.   
   >   
   > The Colonel and Little Missie, by McMurtry, apparently   
   > focuses on Wm F. Cody and Annie Oakley.   
   >   
   > While: Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull, by Bobby Bridger   
   > focuses on that relationship.   
   >   
   > And there are about a dozen other books on the same   
   > subject published in the past dozen years. And   
   > I'll bet not one of these writers has an original   
   > thought among them! When you consider the time and   
   > effort that goes into getting yet another book on   
   > a given subject published, one has to wonder what   
   > is going on?   
      
   Dynamics of modern publishing. Established writers can pitch a project,   
   and it's the publishers who figure the combination of name writer and a   
   topic that seems to sell will make some money. Hollywood does the same   
   thing, buying a script treating what's proven hot with whoever they   
   think they can feature in it to make it go. With them, it's also that   
   film projects take years to get off the ground, and many of them start   
   merely from the news that some other studio has embarked on a project.   
      
   Few are willing to gamble much, thinking a modest but pretty certain   
   profit beats a big loss.   
      
      
   --   
                          Gerald Clough   
       "Nothing has any value, unless you know you can give it up."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)