Wanted: A Pair Of Scissors

John Crace, the man behind The Guardian’s engaging Digested Read, makes a telling point:

“It's in no one's interest to tell our finest authors that something isn't working or that 100 pages could safely be cut without anyone noticing. Schedules would be disrupted, departments would miss budget, the company share price would fall and, to make matters even worse, the authors might take their next books to a different publishing house. All in all, everyone would be very pissed off indeed. Far better to keep quiet, roll out a high-profile PR and marketing campaign and wait for the money to roll in.”