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Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Read about Nixon*. It took more than one book. You can say that he was even more taken down by newspapers, but newspapers are in steep decline, while trade publishers are still reasonably string.
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Nixon was taken down by the truth getting out. The books came once the truth was well and truly out and already doing its work. I'm not sure if any particular book was out in time to have any impact whatsoever even in this. What is important is that there be mechanisms for the truth to get out. The Internet has proven to be a very powerful tool for this to happen. Governments seem to be more terrified of wikileaks than any investigative reporting, at least to judge from the reaction. Personally I find your view that non-fiction books play any significant role curious, and your example of Nixon unconvincing.
Perhaps there may be a few examples where "investigative non-fiction" has played a major role, but I simply can't come up with one so far. I suggest that if there are such examples they are isolated ones. Such books generally involve far too long a lead time to have any significant impact.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
As for fiction, I want strong authors treated fairly. But I'm afraid that there always will be lots of outstanding fiction authors who can't make a good lifetime income writing books. Putting them in a situation where they can't even out their income spikes with a thorough multi-book deal and/or by signing away all rights will only make it worse.
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What do you mean signing away all rights. Most who enter a tradpub deal have few if any such rights left to sign away. At least anecdotally there are many self-published authors who are making a living from their books who would never have done so under the historical tradpub novel. Many authors were able to obtain reversions of their rights and make money from works which had long been out of print and making them nothing from tradpub. One only has to read blogs by authors like Joe Konrath or Kris Rusch to understand the weaknesses of the tradpup model which will in my view doom those publishers who do not take steps to remedy them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Even though I do read fiction, I don't worry about its future. I think it will remain positive for readers, but only consistently good for a handful of full-time authors. Most of the rest will need a day job, regardless of the publishing model.
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Even many best-selling tradpub authors still needed a day job. This is what happens when one party in a venture is greedy and takes virtually all of the proceeds.