Tuesday, August 25 2009
Making Book
Kraken, calamari that fights back
From the Veblen Economics Gone Mad file, it turns out that Kraken Opus, luxury publisher of such scintillating books as the one on soccer star Diego Maradona which included blood and hair samples from the player, and another on Prince's concerts at the O2 arena which will be inlaid with diamonds and will have the symbol the singer adopted as his signature embossed in pure platinum, plans to release a wine book that will retail for more than $1,000,000.00
More misguided than evil, really
One meeeeeelion dollars.
A few things about the book. First, there are extras, such as the half-case of wine from each of the featured 100 wineries written about in the text--six hundred bottles all together. Looking at it that way, the wine is $1866 a bottle. On the other hand, the book is gigantic, weighing more than 30 kilograms (67 lb) and measuring an arm-stretching 1.5 square metres (about sixteen square feet). From that point of view it's only a little over $15 thousand a pound, $62,500/square foot or $1317.65 per page.
They're only going to produce 100 copies, and as of August 25th, there were 25 pre-purchases recorded. Better get in line soon, or you could miss your chance!
I wondered what sort of person would have a world-view so different from the one I hold, to produce such a trivial and blandly consumptive stunt, so I looked 'em up. It turns out the CEO of the company is a chap named Karl Fowler, formerly a derivatives expert with Goldman Sachs. Yes, he helped crater the world economy into the dirt, and moved on to publishing. At least he's showing the same acumen with books: the company went into voluntary administration (a euro-version of chapter 11 bankruptcy) in early June and used the opportunity to buy out shareholders and scuttle off to the United Arab Emirates and set up shop again. He's like Horatio Alger, only sort of not.
One more thing of note: the book on Prince? It comes with a private concert for 50 at his house. I think I'll wait till it's out in paperback.
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