Quote:
Originally Posted by mr ploppy
A lot of the latest generation of writers will never even approach a publisher because they see no value in them anymore. I see this as a good thing, similar to the late 1970s when a lot of musicians put out their own records instead of giving away all their rights to a publisher. There was a lot of amateurish rubbish put out, but the good ones more than compensated for that.
|
I agree, a lot of them won't and like everything else it has its upsides and downsides.
Probably the biggest is the difficulty of sifting through the garbage to find the gems. Who knows how many brilliant authors won't ever reach that critical mass of readers because they just get lost in the dross?
I'm also concerned that with the ease of indie publication there will be less of a drive to improve, and so many otherwise brilliant writers won't hone their craft as finely because they don't need to leap the hurdles.
On the upside - we're more likely to get brilliant and experimental works that would never make it past the gatekeepers.
A thriving indie market/industry is a good thing - but I don't want to see any authors closing any avenue before they've considered it. I think many authors may choose not to go with commercial publishers, but I think this should be a rational choice, not a simple dismissal.
Submitting to others is the greatest cure for golden word syndrome yet found - and the last thing the world needs is more writers suffering from that.