At a period in American literary history when "Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang" and "The Bedwetter" are currently among the premier products of our publishing industry, is another reflection on the sinking fortunes of "the book" in order?

Those memoirs, sort of, by comedians Chelsea Handler and Sarah Silverman are without class or taste, largely harmless, quickly forgotten and guaranteed to draw a few laughs -- if you're 12.

Harper and Grand Central (formerly Warner Books) published them, both respectable houses, but they need to pay the light bill and those books bring in quick cash. (Ms. Handler's book was the fourth-largest nonfiction best-seller last week on BookScan.) Although those books are full of dirty words, profit is not one of them.

Idealism and romance aside, these companies are not in business to produce books that sell only a few copies, but they do anyway because there's a still sense of duty to publish quality among the Handlers and Silvermans.

Ironically, in today's market, quality is no assurance that it will be a best-seller, though. "Cheever: A Life" by Blake Bailey won high praise from critics (including me) last year and made the best books of the year lists coast to coast. It sold about 15,000 hardcover editions.

Other praised biographies last year were about V.S. Naipaul and Raymond Carver. Both sold only 10,000 each in hardcover. Ms. Handler will easily bang past that number.

It's clear then that books don't have to be good to sell a lot. They just need to be "repositioned."

A telling example is "The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon" by David Grann. The author seized on the largely forgotten story of a British explorer who was lost searching for the ruins of a legendary "lost" Amazon stronghold and turned it into a first-person narrative of his own modest attempts. Mr. Grann neglected to tell readers that evidence of that city was discovered years ago.

Sales were modest, so the book was "repackaged" in paperback with a flashy cover to make more money.

The old-wine-in-new-bottles approach keeps mediocre books on store shelves; meanwhile, many worthy projects never make it past the editor's mailbox if they lack the stuff of good marketing

Books, then, are in no danger of disappearing. The real fear is that eventually, the marketing department will come to rule the publishers' roost exclusively.

But, for now that hasn't happened because we readers still expect a good book now and then.

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.