Buy a coffee table book and get a rich person’s perspective

by philg

At a recent gathering of photo journalists I learned about the practicalities of publishing coffee table books. Chinese printing has helped quite a bit, but a lavishly illustrated hardcopy book typically doesn’t make economic sense. How are these getting to market then? It seems that “sponsorship” from a rich person is common. This ends up skewing the content, however. People who are crazy rich are often interested in environmentalism, for example, so there are a lot of books about the fragility of the Earth and how beautiful are the parts that we haven’t trashed yet.

So next time that you’re in the bookstore remember that the large format photo book section could be titled “What rich people care about”.

9 thoughts on “Buy a coffee table book and get a rich person’s perspective”

  1. You probably could have concluded that even without the insider knowledge, simply based on the idea that only the rich (and those who aspire to be rich or look up to them) can afford $100 books that sit on a piece of furniture and signal virtue to cocktail party guests.

  2. Perhaps a better title would be “what rich people pretend to care about for PR reasons,” as I haven’t heard about any rich people giving up their private jets and multiple huge mansions…

  3. Rich people don’t actually care about the environment (or as Ken said they would give up their megamansions and stop flying all the time, whether by private jet or not), they care about virtue signaling. Most of what modern “liberal” rich people (the kind who “care” about the environment) do can be explained by virtue signaling. Facebook and Twitter are virtue signalling amplifiers – now you can virtue signal all day to your friends and even the entire planet. Not only can you virtue signal your concern for the environment, you can virtue signal how much you are against racism, sexism, Trumpism, etc.

  4. You don’t have to spend $100 to virtue signal (in any case a small price to pay vs.the thousands it must cost to sponsor a book). On Amazon or other used book sites (not to mention local thrift shops and library book sales), you can pick up many coffee table books with great virtue signalling cred in used (like new) condition for a fraction of their cover price.

    For example, here is Tigers Forever: Saving the World’s Most Endangered Big Cat – a great virtue signalling book (never mind that Indian villagers live in dread of being torn to shreds by this ferocious predator – it is estimated that at least 373,000 people died due to tiger attacks between 1800 and 2009 ).

    https://www.amazon.com/Tigers-Forever-Saving-Worlds-Endangered/dp/1426212402/ref=zg_bs_8298057011_25

    This book is $40 at your local bookstore (if such a thing still exists) but you can get it for $9 delivered on Amazon. For $100 I could get you a whole stack of virtue signalling coffee table books.

  5. For $8 I’ll sell you a bumper sticker that says “I am virtuous.” (TM). You’ll save money, increase your exposure exponentially, and avoid that infuriating “missed signal dissonance” that coffee table books can create.

  9. Great post. Tells me something I didn’t know, and which I had no real likelihood of finding out. And yet, it’s interesting and memorable.

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