Why the DB Thing Doesn't Bug Me as Much as it Bugs Everyone Else

Look, I wish as much as any other LDS writer that there were publishers and distributors (and readers with lots of money to spend) who were just HUNGERING for my work.

But the fact that DB is not (hungering for my work) is not something I can hold against them.

It seems to me that this frustration (that there are so few outlets/publishers/buyers of quality LDS fiction and creative writing) is at the source of everyone's outrage over the DB/Seagull thing.

Really, what do people fear? That Seagull will go out of business. So? What if they do? Others will take their place--if it is cost effective to do so. If it's not, they won't.

Personally, I believe there is a market out there for the kinds of things DB is refusing to sell and encourage. I think that we just haven't had the right enterprising publisher/distributor show up on the scene yet. But someone will. I have a lot of hope about it. Maybe it will be Parables. Or maybe Scott Parkin will get his publishing company going. And then someone will have the guts to take on their projects and do some distributing for them--which may simply involve massive publicity for a web-based shop. Who knows. But I have great faith that the audience is out there, and the writing skill is out there (here's hoping I've got some of it), and we will all recover from the hit that Seagull is about to take.

Whence all the resentment against DB? Sure, I wish they had more of a sense of mission about Mormon letters. But they don't. They're not doing anything immoral. I think it is absolutely appropriate that a publisher have the right to control who distributes their stuff, and how.

Well, I admit that I'm completely naive about how the publishing/distribution process works, and about laws. So I may be speaking nonsense. But I just don't see why there is so much resentment towards DB. The situation is annoying, depressing, all of those things. I just don't see where DB has done anything morally wrong.

Besides all that--no one knows the truth about the problem. Judging from the past, it seems that the church tends to keep quiet about the ways others have done wrong, so it's possible that if we knew the whole story we would understand DB's decision a lot more.