Rita on TMI and publishing

TMI and publishing

From DeMarco, Frank. Rita's World Vol 2: A View from the Non-Physical (Kindle Location 3143). Rainbow Ridge Books. Kindle Edition".

(Q) Bob Friedman want my opinion about TMI either setting up its own book-publishing line or perhaps setting up a line of books with some other publisher's list.

(A) This is hardly my area of expertise, but I would say ...

(Q) Well, I can feel the hand-off, this time, and I think we're back to the person who advised about non-profits.

(A) TMI like any entity needs to keep its eye on the ball, concentrating on what it does best and letting all subsidiary efforts be performed by professionals, not by its own employees as (inevitably) amateur hour. So, yes, the idea of a line of books - and other media, we remind you - is a good one.  But TMI's involvement should be limited to overall sponsorship and perhaps - perhaps! not definitely - a veto of inappropriate material.  If such a veto is provided for, it should be used mostsparingly, to avoid falling into the "not invented here" syndrome and the amateur-hour supervision of professionals.  And yet, some such veto may be necessary as a brake to avoid the professionals' complementary error of trying to be all things to all people.

(Q) Could Monroe Products serve as the publisher?

(A) You could consider this, or, I should say, TMIand Monroe Productsshould consider this: We are talking about two different things here that need to be separately considered.

Books that have been published (and tapes, CDs, etc. and in the future other products, but we'll say books for a more compact expression) may be of continued interest and value to the TMI community past, present, and future but be unattractive as a commercial proposition to publishers.  Such already-published material could be kept in print by a TMI or MP sub-entity as part of public service, part on-going advertisement.  The editorial judgments would have been made at the time of publication, so you would be dealing with a professional, not an amateur, product.  The function of keeping such a product in availability is very different from the function of choosing, shaping, packaging, promoting that is inherent in publishing new work.

(Q) It would be mostly a matter of coming to agreement with an author who had gotten his rights back.

(A) Conceptually yes.  But new material is a different situation that would require a larger discussion and you are out of time.