Why the Publishing Industry Just Can’t Quit Donald Trump Jr. and Company | Vanity Fair

Cynicism has always played a large role in corporate publishing. It's a cliché, at this point, to talk about the young editor who enters the field dreaming of making art and instead ends up peddling diet books. I began my own publishing career as an editor at Free Press, a general imprint of Simon & Schuster that recently relaunched as a conservative one, the current publisher of Tucker Carlson. But even in my day, Free Press published figures like Joel Osteen (a preacher of prosperity gospel) and Tony Robbins (the self-help guru with a history of misogynistic and harmful behavior). Publishing these best sellers was a necessary compromise: Those blockbusters paid for the small-run short story collections and debut novels. David Brooks and Ann Coulter have been staples of best-seller lists over the past couple decades, and there will always be authors with whom I don't agree. Books are consumer products, and what's popular isn't always what's good, plot-wise or morals-wise.