In Which I Completely Agree with Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow is one of the great visionary thinkers today -- and "visionary," as usual, means "has big ideas that can potentially change everything." I find that I agree with his essays on publishing/open source/Internet topics about half of the time -- or, rather, that I agree with about half of the things in any one essay. (And often violently disagree with the rest.)

Well, Locus Online has posted another one of his periodic essays, and this one I agree with nearly every word. (There's one "but," two "ands" and a "the" that I'd mildly quibble with.)

It's called "In Praise of the Sales Force," and it's about the part of publishing that readers know the least about -- and is actually the most influential: the reps who fan out and actually get books into stores.