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Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks
In some cases if you know your non-fiction subject well, you may be able to write it quite quickly if you are organized and dedicated.
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This is true. And some fiction books are based on years of research.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks
That's not to belittle the effort that goes into them, but there is no reason these tomes can't be self-published.
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The reason is that the cost of extensive travel, whether for interviewing or to visit libraries, can be prohibitive without an advance against a book proposal. Even before the current period of economic weakness began in 2007-8, the money often ran out before the manuscript was delivered. But a lot more time was spent on those books, I think, because the proposal was accepted and the advance given.
I don't claim everything will go kaput. New mechanisms will arise when old ones wither. At the same time Amazon is fighting to reduce Hachette's financial strength, Jeff Bezos's
Washington Post has been going on an old-media hiring spree:
Washington Post hires 50 in five months
The benefits of the book proposal and advance system are so great than if they die, someone will at least partially reinvent them. I don't rule out foundations, funded by tech money, jumping it to un-do some of the damage their founders' business tactics caused.