Seriously, dude? Thucydides?

While checking out the Horn Book Blog, I followed a link to this Harvard Magazine profile of literary agent Andrew Wylie. I was mostly impressed by Mr. Wylie's seemingly colossal ego*, but I think he makes a good point about the future of e-books: the trashier the title, the more attractive its e-book version. I'm never going to give up buying printed books, but when e-readers drop down into the $50 range, I expect I'll start buying e-book versions of the authors on my B-list—you know, the titles you buy because you're too impatient to wait for a library copy, but you're unlikely to read twice.

*Also the fact that he twice uses Shakespeare to disparage Danielle Steel. I'm not arguing the idea that Steel is a terrible writer, but Wylie's comparisons suggest that he is unfamiliar with the many, many genre writers who fall somewhere between the two.