????It's not easy to explain to customers who like the sound of Apple's (AAPL) new subscription plan -- from one-click purchases to protection from junk mail -- why it's a deal breaker for publishers.
????So they've turned to the most powerful weapon in their literary arsenal -- the metaphor. A sample from Monday's news stories:
? "Traditional print publishers have spent the past few years cast in the role of the nice old-fashioned girl in high school who was ignored while more recent arrivals got all the attention." -- David Carr, the New York Times
? "They're the beautiful girlfriend you had in high school who was a bitch for no apparent reason," grumbled one publishing executive. -- Lucia Moses, MediaWeek
? Richard Jones, the co-founder of Last.fm, put it more bluntly: "Apple just ____ over online music subs for the iPhone." -- Josh Halliday, the Guardian
????For more substantive analysis of the publisher's predicament, see Frédéric Filloux's Monday Note.
