This is a fascinating post! The part about students not reading the books of their professors is mind boggling. I mean, if a professor has 50 new students every semester and that meant he could get 50 new reviews on his book, that would go a long way towards boosting his prestige... so why isn't this pushed more by academics? It always seemed to me that academic settings were really passive on the practical aspects of writing... you know, the money part. I guess the key word is jealousy. I've run into that with book contracts with zero advance and zero marketing budget. People just become a seething nugget of rage. There's so much to be fixed in the baseline psychology of the writing community, this post gives me a lot to think about!