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Originally Posted by darryl
Steve. I do not equate academic authors and experts in a field purely with university presses. They have the same access to self-publishing as everyone else. If they are an expert in a field and choose to write for a popular audience they too can reap more of the rewards.
For a worthwhile project various new funding models are available on the internet, which do not involve an author effectively surrendering all of their rights. I suggest to you that this view of Large Publishers as philanthropists through giving commercial advances has rarely if ever been true. Personally I don't think we will miss this. It is certainly not a good argument for preserving the archaic and exploitative system we once had. Large publishers of academic journals and textbooks are now feeling the pinch and fighting desperately to preserve their relevance and businesses in a world that has left them behind. Personally I will not miss them.
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The nature of publishing has changed quite a bit over the last 30 or so years as publishers consolidated under mega corporations. In general, people don't get into publishing for the money, they get into the field because they love books. I think you greatly underestimate how many publishers carried authors who never sold well, but whom they thought wrote worthwhile books. Back then the bean counters were not in charge. Now, the bean counters are in charge and I suspect that the practice is much less common.
In my particular field of interest, history, there are quite a few non academic writers who produce what is considered popular histories. There is a huge difference in the writing style one sees in those books verse the writing style in the academic press. I do think you greatly under estimate the value that advances have for non academic writers.