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Originally Posted by pwalker8
Seems like we have been having this discussion every couple of years since 2007, when it was the fault of the evil publishers and agency pricing. The bottom line is that it's tough making a living as a mid-list author.
Book publishing tends to be very cyclic as genres and sub-genres go in and out of fashion. Authors get stale or have trouble adjusting to the new tastes. It's really not all that uncommon for a mid-tier writer to have a 10-15 year career.
For those who have been reading awhile, how many authors who got their start in the early 80's are still actively publishing new works with the major publishers 20 years later? I have a lot of authors who have one or two series and then kind of disappeared.
The flip side is that as publishing houses were bought out and have consolidated in large mega corporations, the bean counters have a lot more control and companies are looking for more growth than steady profitability. I doubt that very many best selling authors will get the boot, but I'm sure that various formally best seller authors, whose sells have dropped below that magic mark have been.
On the other hand, various publishers are introducing new authors all the time as book sales shift around. Harry Potter started a host of "wizard school" books in the youth market. I've seen SF/F go through a number of cycles - high fantasy, sword and sorcery, urban fantasy, werewolf and vampire romance, steam punk, military SF and so on. I'm sure the cycles will continue as someone gets hot with some sub-genre and other authors rush to try to ride the wave.
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Yes, yes. No arguments there. I am just curious about this (from the blog):
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What I didn’t foresee, and should have, was that traditional publishers would cut so many major bestsellers from their lists. Writers who made lots of money for the company had sales declines, just like everyone else.
Rather than negotiate a new contract, their publishers (particularly Penguin Random House) would stall and no longer answer queries about a new deal. Often these writers got new editors (several) along the way, and the new editors wouldn’t return phone calls to writers or their agents.
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I'm just curious who some of those authors are.