Quote:
Originally Posted by TFeldt
A book these days can be created with three basic elements. The author, the editor and the distribution channel (be it kindle or whatever else). Those are the required elements. On top of that you might want to add an artist for the cover and a marketing campaign, but going back to the $0.99 game scenario you can be entirely certain that 90% of the games released have little to no marketing done in advance. Yet they do just fine. I'm not sure what the publishers actually bring to the table anymore that justifies raising the price that much.
PS: That last sentence wasn't meant as a flame, I genuinely just don't know what they offer that could be so valuable. Anyone care to enlighten me with some concrete examples?
|
One of the most valuable services that publishers offer is to act as a crap filter. If I buy a book from, say, Baen, I can be pretty confident that it will be properly edited, written to a good standard, and that I will enjoy it. With independently published books, the overwhelming majority are - well - crap. I really don't want to have to spend the time finding the tiny number of gems among the garbage. I'd prefer to let a publisher do that for me.