<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/e6129cd0-66ce-4fb9-ac88-facac3125c18/779C036D-1A3E-4F28-9030-59733F1524B5/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.wordofmouthwriters.org/" href="http://www.wordofmouthwriters.org/" style="font-size: 11px;">www.wordofmouthwriters.org</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.wordofmouthwriters.org/"><P align="left" class="MsoNormal"><FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"><B><O:P _moz-userdefined=""><FONT size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"> Dear Oprah Winfrey,</FONT> </O:P></B> </FONT></p> <FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"> </FONT><P align="left" class="MsoNormal"><SPAN><FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"><B>            </B> </FONT></SPAN></p> <FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"> </FONT><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"><B><SPAN>            </SPAN><SPAN><FONT size="3" face="Times New Roman">We writers want to say thank you.<O:P _moz-userdefined=""> </O:P> </FONT> </SPAN> </B></FONT></p> <FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"> </FONT><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"><FONT size="3" face="Times New Roman"><B><SPAN>            </SPAN> </B><SPAN><B><O:P _moz-userdefined=""> </O:P> </B></SPAN></FONT></FONT></p> <FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"> </FONT><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"><B><FONT size="3" face="Times New Roman"><SPAN><SPAN>            </SPAN>When you established The Oprah Winfrey Book Club in 1996, you did something very bold, something that no one else has done. You declared that every person -- anyone who could turn on a TV set -- could be part of the literary world and enjoy it.</SPAN></FONT></B></FONT></P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.wordofmouthwriters.org/"><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"><B><FONT size="3" face="Times New Roman"><SPAN>But there's something more we want to say. <SPAN>            </SPAN><O:P _moz-userdefined=""> </O:P> </SPAN> </FONT> </B></FONT></p> <FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"> </FONT><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"><B><FONT size="3" face="Times New Roman"><SPAN> <O:P _moz-userdefined=""> </O:P> </SPAN></FONT> </B></FONT></p> <FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"> </FONT><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"><B><FONT size="3" face="Times New Roman"><SPAN><SPAN>            </SPAN>In the publishing world, there's a widely-held belief that the landscape of literary fiction is now a gloomy place.<SPAN>  </SPAN>The terrorist attacks of September, 2001 are often cited as the beginning of a great downward shift. After that, we've been told, fiction sales flattened. After that, we've been told, the American public lost its taste for literary fiction. <O:P _moz-userdefined=""> </O:P> </SPAN></FONT></B></FONT></p> <FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"> </FONT><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"><B><FONT size="3" face="Times New Roman"><SPAN> <O:P _moz-userdefined=""> </O:P> </SPAN></FONT> </B></FONT></p> <FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"> </FONT><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"><B><FONT size="3" face="Times New Roman"><SPAN><SPAN>            </SPAN>However,</SPAN></FONT></B></FONT></P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.wordofmouthwriters.org/">the drastic downward shift actually happened six months after the attacks:<SPAN>  </SPAN>fiction sales really began to plummet when the The Oprah Winfrey Book Club went off the air.<SPAN>  </SPAN>When you stopped featuring contemporary authors on your program, Book Club members stopped buying new fiction</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/779C036D-1A3E-4F28-9030-59733F1524B5/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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