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Originally Posted by charlesatan
Yes but as a reader, how do I know that you as a writer is actually good? (Yes, by reading them, but that takes time I could have spent reading a supposedly excellent book.) Do these gatekeepers get it right every time? No. But this is also where brand starts to develop, and readers start following certain publishers/editors/authors (and avoid the ones they don't like).
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I can't say that I've ever considered following a publisher, and it's very rare that I know who edited a book (I've only ever seen that listed on rare indie publications). I certainly do follow authors - which, I imagine, is why publishers/agents are happy to push already published authors but are so reluctant to look at new authors.
You don't have to read every book. The wonder of Amazon etc. is the availability of other reviewers that have gone before you. This is not 100% reliable, but you slowly do learn how to identify useful reviews - one of the best is to see what other reviews a person has done. Even here on MR there are opinions of books by some posters that I am inclined to listen to more than others because previous posts show that our tastes are not dissimilar.
Neither system is perfect, but because the public system has more people involved - it seems to me - there is perhaps more of a chance that good books will eventually show through. A lot of this is still working itself out, but it does appear that the gatekeeper role assumed by the publishers is not one they can claim uncontested victory over.
Quote:
Originally Posted by charlesatan
[...]No, that's not what editorial gatekeepers do. It's not about "flooding" the market but thinking whether they can actually sell the book in X amount of quantities. [...] That doesn't mean that novel was bad, just that they're not the right published for that particular business model. (And why that novel would have worked for a different publisher.) [...]
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From what I read about trying to get published - and I've read a lot from a lot of different sources - it seems to me that publishers and agents have trouble dealing with the volume manuscripts they get. If you want I can find quotes for you suggesting that getting published is who you know rather than what you know, and that manuscripts may be rejected on the first page (or even before). I even have a published book here telling me how important it is to get the name of the person that will receive your manuscript so you can address them by name.
If I can believe such claims, then I cannot necessarily believe that a novel was rejected because it wasn't right for the publisher or business model, but
may have been rejected simply because they didn't have time to look further, or because that particular first page didn't sit well with the acquisitions editor assigned. As the rejected author you (may) never get to find out why you were rejected, or how close your manuscript may have come to being accepted. And none of this gives me a whole lot of faith in the traditional publishing system, especially not when an alternative is becoming viable.
I hope this is not coming over too whiny. I accept that traditional publishers have a business to run and have to spend their time where they get their best returns. But as a new author I have to look at where best to exert my efforts, and traditional publishing is no longer the only game in town. Given some of what I've read about agents and publishers trying to pick up successful indie authors, it leaves you wondering if independent publishing may become the new method of gatekeeping, even for traditional publishers.