In a posting yesterday on the Small-Pub Yahoo Group, founder Marilyn Ross was embarrassed by the publishing industry for the first time. The new book by O.J. Simpson, which may or may not be fictional, has thoroughly disgusted Ross. The reason? She sees it as greed triumphing common decency.
Not surprisingly, Regan Books is the publisher. Regan seems willing to touch books no one else will. (I thought of contacting them but they only accept submissions through an agent and that’s a whole process I didn’t want to get into.) I don’t like the idea of this book but I’m not going to say that O.J. doesn’t have the right to publish his thoughts on his own personal history.
Ross ended her posting by saying:
Oh, I hear some of you screaming “First Amendment Rights” already. But really think about it: How would you feel if this were personally happening to your family?
A humane argument; but the First Amendment is there for a reason and protecting the feelings of someone else is not that reason.
Little does Ross know that the self and small publishing industry she helped bring to the mainstream is not a believer in free speech. Sure, there are organizations who purport to support free speech and booksellers who belong to these organizations. (Everyone gets to put a little button on their Web site and feel proud of themselves.) There are libraries, booksellers and authors who celebrate Banned Books Week (in September). But what I’ve experienced leads me to believe that the only free speech they wish to protect is speech that they agree with. The banned or dangerous books they defend are usually older than I am or have been around so long they’re already considered classics. Cutting-edge thinking indeed.