There's An Alien On The Roof

The conversation below is an amalgamation of about twenty different conversations I've had since 9:35 AM Wednesday, December 9th. If you don't quite get the context, I'll fill you in. Later. We denizens of the newsstand world have apparently decided to mess with things. Again. Will this outcome be good? Well, for some former employees, no. For some publishers who may not see payment for product sold for a long time, no. For some publishers and their employees who may miss an issue on the newsstand and thus miss their advance payments and final payments on an issue (or two, or three), no. But in the long run, the end result may be good. It is certainly a game changer. We should have seen this coming down the road. It could be good. We'll see. Stay tuned. In the meantime, try and find some humor in a phantasmagorical mess up of slightly less than epic proportions.

A Recently Overheard Conversation

Publisher: “So what does this letter from my national distributor mean?” Consultant: “It means that they’re going out of business. Right now. Publisher: "WTF? Now? That's crazy! Why?" Consultant: "Probably because one of the big wholesalers won’t carry their product anymore." Publisher: "WTF? That's crazy! Why?" Consultant: "The wholesaler objects to the distributor being a part of a company that is now competing with them for retailers.” Publisher: “That's crazy too! Is that legal?” Consultant: “Who knows anymore. Maybe in some context. Maybe not in another.” Publisher: “Well this January issue is a pretty big deal. Now how are we going to get it out?" Consultant: “We have to find you a new distributor.” Publisher: “We’re supposed to ship next week.” Consultant: “I know. This will be a lot of fun.” Publisher: “What a mess!" An awkward silence ensues. Publisher: "Well this is great. Did I also tell you that my printer screwed up my subscription insert for this issue? Consultant: "No, that's terrible." Awkward silence. Publisher: "And, the server went down and tanked of my digital. My tech guy's in the backups but this could take some time. This is the worst timing ever.” Consultant: "That's even worse." Another awkward silence. There is a loud humming noise on the cell phone connection.  Consultant: “So what are you going to do with alien spaceship that just landed on your roof?” Publisher: “They can wait. I’m busy.”

Good luck with that.