Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
He's biased, plainly, but it's a fair point that traditional publishers do play a valuable role as "gatekeepers", in terms of filtering out the unreadable crap. That's why I personally generally stick with books from publishers - I don't have the time to find the gems that I'm sure do exist in the large garbage pile of indie books.
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Me too
I remember reading an editor somewhere saying that most of the stuff that ends up in the publisher's slush pile is the product of barely literate wannabe "authors".
A lot of people think they have what it takes to be the next Faulkner (or at least the next Stephen King). Per the
Dunning-Kruger effect, these people are the least aware of the fact that they suck. And now they are all able (and willing!) to self-publish.
As far as my personal opinion is concerned, most of what is published by traditional publishers is also crap that doesn't enhance the world at all (*cough*
Twilight *cough*), but publishers do make the search space smaller, generally in a
good way.
Nobody wants (or ought to want) access to the Library of Babel - huge search spaces tend to maxentropy, yielding no useful bits at all.