[MD] Review of 'The Truth About Art'.

[Ant McWatt]

Arlo Bensinger stated to Dan Glover, October 23rd 2014:

We can't really deny that there is a symbolic capital to be had with the publisher imprint. Right or wrong, it has meaning. Many academic authors are required, for tenure, to publish using certain 'respected' or 'established' publishing venues. Having your book published by "Oxford University Press" (for example) establishes symbolic capital for both the author and the argument. Whether this is wholly good or bad, whether it is something that we should reject outright or accept, it is a fact for those publishing within their academic tenure. 


Ant McWatt comments:

Thanks Arlo.  This is the exact point I was trying to convey to Dan but you have explained this point about modern academia and its relationship with publishers a lot better than I did!

Best wishes,

Ant


ORIGINAL POST FROM ARLO  TO DAN IN FULL:

[Ant]
Remember that Patrick Doorly (the author of TTAA) was primarily aiming his book towards an academic audience (I guess fine art critics and philosophers mainly) so a vanity publisher such as CreateSpace (whose academic credibility is basically zero) was not an option open to him.  It's the finely honed arguments in Patrick's book which give it, its intellectual quality and its these arguments that I ask the reader of this post to be primarily concerned with.

[Dan]
In other words (and forgive me if I am translating this wrongly), folk like me have no reason to be reading Patrick Doorly's book. Only those who are academically trained in the fine arts and philosophy would have any use for it. It is a text book.
 
[Arlo]
I don't think "academic" here should be a point of contention Dan (*I* think you are highly academic). Sadly, textbooks do tend to be very expensive, even David Grange's text (which is mostly text) sold for $110 upon publication (I see the price is down to $69 on Amazon). So authors who publish in this format may do everything they can to keep costs down. How many 'non-academics' do you think will shell out $110 for Granger's book? And yet I'd argue its incredibly important. So $25 for Doorley's book as it is, or $110+ for the book with high-quality print and hi-res color images? Which do you think will reach more readers?
 
And, we can't really deny that there is a symbolic capital to be had with the publisher imprint. Right or wrong, it has meaning. Many academic authors are required, for tenure, to publish using certain 'respected' or 'established' publishing venues. Having your book published by "Oxford University Press" (for example) establishes symbolic capital for both the author and the argument. Whether this is wholly good or bad, whether it is something that we should reject outright or accept, it is a fact for those publishing within their academic tenure. 
 
[Dan]
CreateSpace is different than a vanity publisher in that no upfront purchase is necessary.
 
[Arlo]
Another consideration is that often authors (academic or otherwise) are provided with some compensation when their manuscript is accepted. Pirsig, for example, worked off a Guggenheim grant. Now, I'm not sure if that specific grant conferred certain rights to the publisher (and away from Pirsig), but often authors need compensation (even in the form of work-release) while they are writing. I do not know the specifics of Doorly's publishing contract, but there may have been important and unavoidable reasons (in addition to academic capital) that he went with a publisher rather than self-publishing. 


.