New York Review Book Classics is a publisher where I'm willing to get books on spec. The major university presses are others. FS&G? The ones where when I cruise OverDrive, I can find new-to-me books by a publisher which tends to publish books I'll like.
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Originally Posted by DiapDealer
I'll happily concede that the worst traditionally-published books are, on average, marginally better than the the worst independently published books, if you'll concede that such a comparsion is silly and pointless for the vast majority of readers and book-buyers out there. Unless, of course, you see anything productive about a "my worst is better than your worst" argument.  |
I must disagree. The worst trad-pubbed books are far better than the worst indies, because the worst indies seem to me to be the product of functional illiterates. The worst are poorly conceived, written, spelled, produced, and so forth. At least the worst trad-pubbed books have the sheen of having been processed by more than one pair of eyes* (belonging to someone who thinks s/he's the next great discovery). I'm not arguing that there isn't trad-pubbed carp out there; I don't read much mainstream fiction anyway, so my bar is pretty high in that respect. Unreadable (for me) is unreadable, publishing method be damned. But at least the trad-pubbed carp doesn't offend me on the basic grounds of literacy.
*And yes, the glaring exception is OCRed books that go out as is, and that's an appalling practice.