Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Maltby
... from my point of view; there seems to be a shortage of ebooks from authors I
have found to provide the reading experience I am looking for. Those authors that
have impressed me cannot seem to produce ebooks fast enough to make it so I don't
have to wait longer than I would like for the next book. That there are a number of
newer authors joining the ones I have always enjoyed, is a good thing from my point
of view. That there may be more that I find annoying, than there might have been
when the BPHs were able to operate as a "Gatekeeper", making it necessary to weed
through many to find the gems - is offset by the fact that the open gate allows me
to see many that I find enjoyable that the gatekeeper would have kept from me, in the
past.
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This.
Turow and the old guard bemoing the abundance of new (and old, backlist) content that is coming and staying to stay are assuming that everybody is a potential buyer for every book so that more books automatically means less customers for every book.
They don't consider that there might be unmet demand for certain types of books (soft porn ala 50 Shades) and a surplus of others (even one Snooki book being too many) simply because the gatekeepers are incapable of correctly guessing specialty-market reader interests. The traditional gatekeepers are all about high-volume lowest common denominator stuff and whatever else might appeal to *them*. Any audience not served by those categories has been going underserved.
Now there is at least a chance for alternative voices and styles to find their own natural market; it might be a few hundred sales per book, it might be a few million. The verdict comes straight from the readers' wallets.
Even some of the old guard are reluctantly realizing it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/book...rld?CMP=twt_gu
Quote:
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2. Gone is our confidence that publishers and agents know exactly what everyone wants to (or should) read, and can spot all the material worth our attention. Soft porn and fantasy have emerged as particularly under-represented in the industry’s official output.
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(There's ten of those surprisingly realistic--for the source--nuggets.)