Quote:
Originally Posted by conan50
The fantasy that traditional publishers found these great new authors to present to us died long ago. Actually the place to discover great new authors is Amazon and other self-publishing outlets. Those same 'great' traditional publishers turned down "Harry Potter" numerous times and had closed the door to many new authors.
She is trying to make Amazon into the boogeyman, but the problem was/is a dying and diminishing traditional publishing system being crushed by its own inadequacy and short-sighted gains. And she tries to defend the very thing that caused many of the problems she blames Amazon for.
There are good reasons to bash on Amazon, but she doesn't address them. Such as the book/ebook monopolistic power Amazon is quickly becoming, but not for the reasons she mentions. She should rather blame the failing of the traditional publishers and their greed for what Amazon has become. In the end you are writing for the reader, and the readers are the best judges of what rises to the top. If Amazon takes a shotgun approach to publishing, I prefer that to the stranglehold of traditional publishing.
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If you look carefully at her screeds you'll quickly notice the non-sequitur that she keeps bringing up and gives away what really offends her: capitalism.
The very idea that "literature" must please readers to survive is what offends her sensibilities.
It's a hundred year old debate (entire books have been written documenting it) and one the elites keep bringing up like clockwork. And one they keep losing.
The most amusing thing here is she wouldn't even have a paying career if it weren't for the bugaboo of the 50's: paperback originals. ACE paperbacks in particilar, the ebooks of the 50's and 60's.