|
One thing publishers provide IMO is a settling period. If an aspiring author gets rejected, they may look at their work and revise/improve it before submitting it elsewhere. This can, one hears, happen many times
If you submit a book to a publisher, the first person who sees it has to like it to some extent or it goes no farther.
I am sure many books have been improved in this way. Of course if the author writes a great romance that is first read by a romance hater, then they also may be discouraged completely.
While I don't see publishers as gatekeepers, saving us from the worlds mindless trash, I think that they have to have a fairly good understanding of what makes a book that will be enjoyed by many people or they would be out of business.
When I was very young I read anything as there were not a lot of books available, and I can only remember reading one book I found disgusting and unbearable. I would even read my math and science textbooks.
Now my tastes have sunken, and I read for entertainment mostly.
I generally read traditionally published works for two reasons,
1. I love a lot of authors whose books are traditionally published, because they were written long before we had ebooks
2. I look on the publishing industry as people who can be trusted to indicate to me in a way I am accustomed to books I am likely to enjoy.
I haven't always enjoyed the books I have bought or borrowed or found abandoned on a park bench, but much more often than not I have, I can tell before buying or borrowing a book if I am likely to enjoy it. How or why I am not sure of, but I think that the publishing industry has been good to me in this regard.
I've never been aware of publishers as individual entities until very recently. I never looked at a book and said ahh published by Baen, gotta be good or at least okay. But how can I fail to hold an industry in hiof which gh regard that has provided me with 3-8 books a week for more than 50 years, at least 90% I found enjoyable on some level, and over 50% I really liked.
Helen
|