A wise executive explained not too long ago: “Even well-meaning gatekeepers slow innovation. When a platform is self-service, even the improbable ideas can get tried, because there’s no expert gatekeeper ready to say ‘that will never work!’ And guess what – many of those improbable ideas do work, and society is the beneficiary of that diversity.” Except, apparently, for short length ebooks, where Amazon’s hired gatekeeper David Blum “is using his deep connections in the New York media world” and “cherry-picks [fewer than 15] pieces from the more than 1,000 unsolicited manuscripts he receives each month” for Kindle Shorts. Rather […]