Marketing books for a mid-size publisher happens to be, presently, my bread and margarine. The actualities of market massage are not very different than variously ornery political instincts might suggest: author celebrity is to be exploited, external scandal or deliciousness always helpful to land spots on E! et al., and all publicity is bought; the NYT Book Review is now working against the inde's for Barnes and Noble, and any small-chunk review in it--up the spectrum to the Utne Reader etc.--can be counted on as a barter for advertisement. Book purchasing, even the most deflated (corrected?) kind, of course is determined by author celebrity or at least hope of it, often the hope of conspicuous foresight of author celebrity-- one of the less ethically upright, though certainly "human," insinuations of encouragement of unknowns in this and other communities. The Book of Demons has been dredged for scandal external to its content, and if "scandal" implies a morality, let's concede at the least fallability, the weakness of personal struggle, descent, and heroism, by which we can get access and understand our poets as we understand our Funniest Home Video bumblers. Coddling this instinct by suggesting its inevitability seems a dull trick to play on behalf of a sluggish mass, unable really to get at it unless the same four-color, high-cost poster gives them the clue. Marketing rules, generally, aim to cancel the effects and possibilities of surprise. On the other hand, this argument has been seen, hasn't it, to go nowhere, and to be an outlet for some vanity. Also, Amazon.com is wrecking the business of many medium to small publishers, and is responsible especially in the university and academic presses for dwindling non-discounted sales which have turned the heads of those presses' commissioning editors away from books of advanced (if not celebrity) scholarship which would never have sold more than a few hundred copies. It and other on-line book indices confirm the assumption of most customers that books are overpriced and the prices charged by booksellers, especially small and independent ones, grossly inflated. Andrea %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%