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“Holt Uncensored” is a widely read, free online column about books and the book industry written by former San Francisco Chronicle book editor and critic Pat Holt. Pat is noted for her outspoken opinions, her insightful observations on book publishing trends, and her personal reflections comparing back when with the here and now. She could out ramble me on almost any topic. In her September 22, 2004, column, Pat rightfully rambled-on—in excellent form—with an inspired passion about the many harmful woes caused by Xlibris outsourcing of jobs to Pacific-rim countries. Pat focuses on Xlibris for heartlessly downsizing their staff in the USA to increase their profits by paying for cheaper and inferior services offshore. She skillfully presents the layered multi-national corporate structure of Random House owning Xlibris and Bertelsmann—the German owner of Random House—dictating corporate terms of profit or perish imposed with a mandate of effective-cost-effectiveness begets more profits. According to Holt’s column, John Feldcamp, Xlibris CEO, implies that Xlibris can't compete with other companies without outsourcing. She goes on to pointedly explain—in a way that even the thickest corporate mindset could understand—why that's now an obsolete argument. I believe one of the reasons Xlibris can’t compete is because they’ve been trying to take an evolving book publishing methodology, with very fluid dynamics, and automate the process into the rigid structure of cost-effective means to generate greater profits through formula-publishing. They have a reputation in the book publishing community for being relentless in making far-fetched promises to lure aspiring authors into a publishing scheme that’s short on delivery and very costly to the disgruntled author. No book publisher can survive—much less produce a profit—publishing books by authors who are dissatisfied with their publishing service. No bookseller is going to order books from a publisher who fails to deliver books as promised. There is a dark stain on our evolving branch of publishing from promises not kept by Xlibris that have festered lingering apprehensions among booksellers about ordering POD published books. To read Pat’s entire column and to subscribe to her newsletter go to: www.holtuncensored.com
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