KarenO'Conner
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- Mar 19, 2011
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Case in Point:
PERMANENT OBSCURITY: Or A Cautionary Tale of Two Girls & Their Misadventures with Drugs, Pornography & Death by Richard Perez
RE: News Release Item
New York Times Author Considers a Two Million Dollar Law Suit Against the ABA ... For Censorship
Former New York Times contributor and novelist, Richard Perez, author of PERMANENT OBSCURITY, has decided to strike back against censorship. "This would be on behalf of all independent authors everywhere," he has said, currently assembling his case with legal council.
The target of his fight is the ABA (American Bookseller's Association), currently representing 1,100 independent bookstores, who almost one year ago refused to carry or permit any advertising for his above mentioned novel, on the basis of content.
The result of this very deliberate act of censorship has resulted in less than 5% of independent bookstores nationwide actually carrying the title, and to this day the novel, which has received generally favorable reviews otherwise, remains virtually unobtainable and unknown to a wider reading public outside of Amazon.com.
"When it comes to the arts and politics, we live in an environment completely owned and operated by the corporate media, and the publishing industry especially personifies this," Mr. Perez was quoted as saying. "Promotional agencies like the ABA come into play because by choosing which books are granted exposure and which are not, they are in effect setting the agenda, laying out the choices and possibilities that a reading public might otherwise consider."
In the past, the ABA has been an agency that has publicly touted its anti-censorship advocacy. That "pro-indie" and anti-bias rhetoric is loudly proclaimed on its website: http://www.bookweb.org/advocacy
Yet when it comes to truly independent books, books about true dissension in America, representing alternative views into subcultures and non-mainstream sexuality, be it with lesbianism, sexploitation, or bdsm, as in the case of PERMANENT OBSCURITY, that stance obviously doesn't apply
"As the axiom goes," said Mr. Perez. "'Don't listen to what people say, watch what they do.' "
Asked if the ABA was exposing their corporate ownership with their gesture of forbidding any advertising of his book, the author replied, hardly able to contain his sarcasm: "You tell me. It's not like corporate titles are their bread and butter, right? Any title, like mine, that might potentially 'denigrate' their relationship with so-called 'indie' bookstores and their exposure of corporate product needs to be brought into question."
Asked how he arrived at the figure of two million dollars bandied in his suit, Mr. Perez expounded, "Easy. Subsidiary rights need to be considered, not just straight book sales, and this includes foreign translation rights, film rights." According to Mr. Perez: "All this has been affected by the ABA in its deliberate attempt to cut off or sabotage the chances of this particular literary property, obviously on the basis of content."
Richard Perez's last novel, THE LOSERS' CLUB, an independently published romantic comedy set in the East Village of the 1990s, sold widely and was translated into several languages, including Turkish, Korean, and Italian, with the novel optioned and broadly considered for the basis of several films, including a mini-series.
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Me again: So with all the talk of cutting off funding to NPR, thus cutting off the voice of dissension, comes another question:
By denying exposure to those asking the difficult questions are we tipping the game in favor of the non-dissenters? Those pro-conservative, pro-traditional, pro-mainstream (and therefore corporate) agencies charged with supporting and maintaining the status quo?
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PERMANENT OBSCURITY: Or A Cautionary Tale of Two Girls & Their Misadventures with Drugs, Pornography & Death by Richard Perez
RE: News Release Item
New York Times Author Considers a Two Million Dollar Law Suit Against the ABA ... For Censorship
Former New York Times contributor and novelist, Richard Perez, author of PERMANENT OBSCURITY, has decided to strike back against censorship. "This would be on behalf of all independent authors everywhere," he has said, currently assembling his case with legal council.
The target of his fight is the ABA (American Bookseller's Association), currently representing 1,100 independent bookstores, who almost one year ago refused to carry or permit any advertising for his above mentioned novel, on the basis of content.
The result of this very deliberate act of censorship has resulted in less than 5% of independent bookstores nationwide actually carrying the title, and to this day the novel, which has received generally favorable reviews otherwise, remains virtually unobtainable and unknown to a wider reading public outside of Amazon.com.
"When it comes to the arts and politics, we live in an environment completely owned and operated by the corporate media, and the publishing industry especially personifies this," Mr. Perez was quoted as saying. "Promotional agencies like the ABA come into play because by choosing which books are granted exposure and which are not, they are in effect setting the agenda, laying out the choices and possibilities that a reading public might otherwise consider."
In the past, the ABA has been an agency that has publicly touted its anti-censorship advocacy. That "pro-indie" and anti-bias rhetoric is loudly proclaimed on its website: http://www.bookweb.org/advocacy
Yet when it comes to truly independent books, books about true dissension in America, representing alternative views into subcultures and non-mainstream sexuality, be it with lesbianism, sexploitation, or bdsm, as in the case of PERMANENT OBSCURITY, that stance obviously doesn't apply
"As the axiom goes," said Mr. Perez. "'Don't listen to what people say, watch what they do.' "
Asked if the ABA was exposing their corporate ownership with their gesture of forbidding any advertising of his book, the author replied, hardly able to contain his sarcasm: "You tell me. It's not like corporate titles are their bread and butter, right? Any title, like mine, that might potentially 'denigrate' their relationship with so-called 'indie' bookstores and their exposure of corporate product needs to be brought into question."
Asked how he arrived at the figure of two million dollars bandied in his suit, Mr. Perez expounded, "Easy. Subsidiary rights need to be considered, not just straight book sales, and this includes foreign translation rights, film rights." According to Mr. Perez: "All this has been affected by the ABA in its deliberate attempt to cut off or sabotage the chances of this particular literary property, obviously on the basis of content."
Richard Perez's last novel, THE LOSERS' CLUB, an independently published romantic comedy set in the East Village of the 1990s, sold widely and was translated into several languages, including Turkish, Korean, and Italian, with the novel optioned and broadly considered for the basis of several films, including a mini-series.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Me again: So with all the talk of cutting off funding to NPR, thus cutting off the voice of dissension, comes another question:
By denying exposure to those asking the difficult questions are we tipping the game in favor of the non-dissenters? Those pro-conservative, pro-traditional, pro-mainstream (and therefore corporate) agencies charged with supporting and maintaining the status quo?
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