[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I am not that keen on the term gatekeeper as it seems to imply that the gatekeeper is keeping things out and letting only the priveledged few through. I don't actually think the publishing industry does that.

Uh, yes they do.
That is exactly what they do.
And gatekeeping is *their* term; they brag about it.

Here's a long, somewhat rambling post that eventually gets to the point:
http://www.theseattlevine.com/featur...h-remembering/

Anybody who gives half a rip about books or publishing has noted an interesting phenomenon this year. Vitriol against self-publishing has ramped up sharply in 2013. Articles decrying the indie literature movement are springing up all across the internet, from agents’ blogs to publishers’ Twitter feeds to major online magazines. On Salon.com alone, in 2013 alone, the lineup of articles have ranged from a rational contemplation of self-publishing culture to completely missing the mark to not one, but two pathetically misinformed and entitled bitch-fests about how self-publishing failed to make certain authors gazillionaires. (Never mind the fact that New York hasn’t made those guys gazillionaires, either.) And those are just some of the articles I’ve read, just in 2013, just on Salon.
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What’s going on here?

I remember a few years ago when self-publishing was a joke, a guaranteed career-ender. Nobody ranted about self-publishing back then, because there was no need. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t a threat. And yet now the internet is full, suddenly, embarrassingly, of kicking and screaming from the traditional publishing world.

And what does that tell you?

I've seen over a dozen in the last month.
Some are amusing in their "my-ox-is getting-gored" obviousness.

On the gatekeeping issue:

In 2013, it has become more apparent than at any point since self-publishing became a legitimate “thing” that the slush pile has moved off the desks of unlucky, starving New York interns and onto the laps of everyday readers. Now it’s readers who sift, who sort, who judge. Now it’s readers who decide which authors make the cut and which are denied the success they crave. There are way more readers than interns. And so way more writers than ever before are making it out of the slush pile and into a sustainable career. Because there have always been more good books than publishers can publish.

And those readers and writers have stepped right around that crowd of people who formerly stood between them, and they have met face to face. For better or for worse.

Writers everywhere had, until very recently – maybe right up until 2013 – tacitly agreed to maintain for one another a mutual illusion. Or that’s the way it seems, given how popular certain would-be truisms still are amongst writers, even in 2013.

This illusion is a mantra you’ll often hear repeated on the more dogmatically anti-indie writers’ forums out there, as well as at writers’ conferences. I have no doubt that John Green and Andrew Franklin believe the mantra whole-heartedly. It goes something like this: All good books get published!

And by “get published,” we mean “Purchased by a real publisher. Contracted. Earn money. Probably lots of money. Accepted. Acceptance: that’s what you want, Writer, and if your book is good, then by god, it will bring you acceptance if you just wait long enough. Acceptance by the only people who matter: The Publishers.”

One does not need to be terribly perceptive to see how it behooves publishers and all who work for them (literary agents, booksellers, distributors) to encourage that pathetic old saw, to keep it circulating. After all, without writers lining up for a thimbleful of acceptance from publishers, publishers have no product to sell.

But why are writers so invested in that dogma? Is it perhaps a means of staving off the incredible disappointment so many authors feel at what that long-craved acceptance actually amounts to: meager advances, hellishly restrictive contracts, botched handling of covers and promotion? Is it to supplement the miserable pay – a percentage given over to your agent, of course! – with a wan feeling of accomplishment? Is it to fix the blinders more firmly to one’s face so one won’t notice that in 2013, when everybody on the planet has a device in his or her hand that has PayPal on it, publishers are still paying authors twice a year, with intentionally labyrinthine statements that disguise both the path and health of one’s finances?

What is this abusive marriage writers clearly have to such a silly and obviously wrong mantra? Why have we convinced ourselves that without the Publishing Industrial Complex, it is impossible to stand on our own two feet?

It was fellow indie author Karl Fields who recently pointed out to me how well this quote from the film Moneyball applies to the huffing and stomping, the kicking and flailing we are witnessing from all quarters of Bookworld as indie authors find more, better, faster success on their own, as we stop believing the war cry of John Green and others like him. As sales of self-publishing titles rise to 20% in the most lucrative genres in all of publishing:

I know you’re taking it in the teeth, but the first guy through the wall… he always gets bloody… always. This is threatening not just a way of doing business… but in their minds, it’s threatening the game. Really what it’s threatening is their livelihood, their jobs. It’s threatening the way they do things… and every time that happens, whether it’s the government, a way of doing business, whatever, the people who are holding the reins – they have their hands on the switch – they go batshit crazy.

The gatekeepers are feeling threatened; their business model is getting disrupted. So they lash out.
They lash out at ebooks and ereaders (they don't smell like real books do!).
They lash out at the first mover in the ebook mainstreaming (Amazon is eeee-vile! Really, honest! They are wrecking civilization!).
They lash out at the writers who dare venture into the unknown beyond the gatekept reservation.

Simple equation: gatekeeping = power.
Power of choice. Deciding who gets to market (Nicole Polizzi: yes, Amanda Hocking: no. At least not until she was selling by the million on her own.)
Power of setting contract terms ("Take it or leave it, that is how the industry works.").
Power to set and raise prices ("Print went up yet again so we need to raise prices again." "Oh, printing costs are a *tiny* part of the costs of producing a book!") at the drop of a hat, even through collusion. Easy to do with print in the old days, not so easy in the digital domain. And this time they were so blatant the caught the eye of the trust-busters of the DOJ.

The backlash?
The gatekeepers are losing (a portion of) their power.
So the do what old entrenched powers do when they are threaened by changing times; they dish out the FUD big time to get the sheep back in line.

They need to maintain the central myth that keeps them in business: that the *only* good books are the ones *they* publish. Nothing else is worth consumers notice or their money.

Finally, one of Franklin's smears caught her eye:

To declare that purchased Facebook friends and ill-gotten social media notice is “what passes for affirmation” amongst self-publishers is patently stupid. You may not be able to swing a dead cat meme on the internet without hitting somebody railing against the indie literature movement, but neither must you look very far to see how completely the good self-published authors are embraced by readers. I could spout a whole list of names that prove you wrong, but frankly, it’s been done to death already, and this article is long enough with still more length to go.

No, what passes for affirmation amongst the serious self-publishers – those who approach it as a business, as a career – is the acceptance of readers. Because in the end, readers and writers are the only necessary players in this game. The rest of you are rapidly becoming obsolete. Bowker’s 20% isn’t likely to go down by this time next year.

And that, is what has the gatekeepers in a frenzy: indie ebooks that bypass the traditional establishment, that don't surrender 87% of the book's revenues, are being accepted by *readers* as good and worthy product.

Enough that 20% of all UK book sales are indie. Enough that 25% of Nook sales are indie. Enough that 10% of Kobo's worldwide sales are from *their* inhouse indie channel. Enough that maybe half the romance books sold in the US are indie.

Note those are *sold* numbers, not published.
Those are "consumers voting their wallet" numbers.
Those are "reality shifting under your feet" numbers.
And there is worse (for them) coming, now that the major pbook distributors like B&T and Ingram are listing and distributing POD indie *pbooks* the same as the trad-pubbed titles.
What is happening in ebooks is moving to (trade paperback) pbooks and (soon) hardcovers.

The disruption in book publishing and distribution that started with ebooks isn't stopping there.

And neither is the FUD from the (properly) scared traditionalists.

But just because *they* are scared doesn't mean *we, the readers* have to be. Because the thing is, the way things are going, the new gatekeepers are *us*.

We get to choose what is good.
The power is moving dwnstream, where it always belonged. And now it is up to us to use that power responsibly. Because, as somebody keeps saying (ad-nauseum) with great power comes great responsibility. In this case, the responsibility to set your own standards of good or bad; to read what pleases you and accept that others have their own standards, something Mr Franklin and his ilk seek to deny us.

The gatekeepers really wish we would let them choose for us.
Me, I'd rather choose for myself; I don't mind wading ankle deep through the slush pile. If anything, it's fun; exercising my new-found power to find reading jewels on my own.

More folks should give it a try; it's not at all hard to do.