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Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Patronage and commissioning seemed to work fairly well for hundreds of years.
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Yeah, if you're satisfied with choosing from 1000 novels a year written in the taste of the patron, it worked great. Is that really what you're looking for? Heck, in the 1600's in Germany, people used to complain that they had a hard time reading the *one* novel a year that was produced. (Plays and poetry were more popular).
You really, really, really, should learn about how this worked in practice before suggesting that it is at all viable. (And of course if a patron pays Lee Child to produce one Jack Reacher novel a year, why should the patron care if the novel is released to the general populace?
Over 200,000 titles are released in the US every year. I would prefer that degree of choice; I also like that the author's interest is aligned with the public's.
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And publishers haven't "gambled" for quite some time. The hype machine makes sure they will at least recoup their investment. I mean, when was the last time you heard of a publisher losing their ass on an author they were "betting" on? So it's not so much "picking a winner" as it is "manufacturing a winner." Unless you believe that best seller lists strictly represent what readers are asking for.
If they decide to publish someone's book, it will succeed... but not necessarily due to their trained artistic eye for great literature.
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Sorry, no. Even cursory research will show you that 70-80% of books don't earn back their advance. This is well understood and has been the case for many years.
Of course, when a book hits it really big, it makes up for a lot of losers.