A New Low
This evening I was browsing the course offerings at Temple University’s Center City campus for some fun continuing education classes. Being somewhat one dimensional in my hobbies, I went right for the Writing/Literature offerings and there were some interesting courses: Writing Short Stories, Playwriting, Write Your Novel in a Month (which sounds very tempting if I had a novel in mind; but, alas, I don’t), and some typical reading group type classes. But there was one that stuck out: A Sneak Peak [sic] at Next Year’s Bestsellers. It wasn’t just the misspelling that had me intrigued. Here’s a bit of the course description:
You will read special advance copies of the books and then, as a class, critique each book and predict what readers and critics will say when the books are actually published. Contributing publishers will include: W.W. Norton, Knopf, Random House and others to be determined…The manuscripts will be mailed to you or made available for pick-up before the class begins.
Currently, I work for a publisher. I understand that some of the lines between marketing and editorial are blurred. However, this “class” costs the student $95.00. That’s right. The student pays Temple $95.00 to host a class to critique new and not yet published books from the big time publishers. Unbelievable.