Quote:
Originally Posted by sabredog
I doubt they would ever have been traditionally published by the BPH's, who pick and chose those authors they expect to get massive returns from.
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Each of the big six publish thousands of books every year, large numbers of which haven't the slightest chance of generating massive returns. Here are a few quickly chosen Penguin titles:
The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher
A Field Guide to Radiation
Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra
Yes, they are non-fiction. It's in the nature of fiction that almost any publishable book could be a surprise best-seller. An exception would be new translations of old literature. Here's one from Random House I just found and now plan to read:
Doctor Zhivago
It could be correct that advances and massive rewrites are the past, and copy-edited-only solitary authors are the future. If so, from where I read, that's bad.
If those big publishers really are dinosaurs, it may just be that I'll be reading more books from university publishing houses.