Why conservative authors feel like minorities...

The New York Times can't understand why conservative authors feel that the publishing industry is too liberal. (the freepers were the only place I could find the text).

Their logic is that that 18 out of 30 of the best selling political books this year have been by conservative authors, and Robert Bork once had a best selling book, so conservatives are wrong to say that conservatives are underrepresented.

I don't think that's really an accurate argument, because the number of bestselling books doesn't mean that there aren't a whole lot more liberal books overall. I think there are a few other things that make conservatives feel oppressed in publishing:

-Distribution - go into most large bookstores and it seems that the majority of books out there are liberal. The "Bush eats babies for breakfast" books seem to be the ones on prominant display in the front of the store, fronted on the bookshelves, and on tables throughout the store. The conservative books seem to be fewer in number, with fewer copies, and are harder to find. If it wasn't for Amazon and other net retailers, I think there would be a lot fewer conservative books sold.

-Libraries - most librarians seem to be way to left, with the viewpoint that if you complain that you don't think your first grader should read "Joe likes it up the butt", then we live in an oppresive police state. My guess is that most librarians tend to order more liberal books than conservative ones.

-Book reviews - it seems like liberals dominate the book review field, and this means that liberal books get favorable reviews, and conservative books tend to get negative reviews no matter what.