Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Until the internet became household--and even only after ebooks had made their initial surge onto the scene--I couldn't have told you who published my favorite authors. It just never occurred to me. Publishing houses weren't relevant to me. They still aren't. I just finished a fairly popular backlist title by a fairly popular scifi author. Without going back and looking, I've no clue who published it.
Now maybe I'm the odd one out in that regard, but I doubt it. I've a feeling most readers (casual and avid alike) are unaware of any "voice" a particular publishing house might have. I would never assume I'm going to like something based on who published it. It wouldn't occur to me.
I know Tor publishes Science Fiction, but I wouldn't consider that a very helpful filter (assuming I even notice that a book is published by Tor). I don't like all science fiction, after all. I've tried to read a lot of tradpubbed, very competently edited scifi garbage.
Sorry, but I have to believe that readers who are publisher-sensitive (let alone publisher-centric) are a pretty niche group. Most are author- or genre-sensitive, and as a consequence, fairly publisher-agnostic/ignorant.
|
Exactly. I know that certain books are published by Tor because of the free monthly offering, and certain other books are published by Baen because up until a few years ago, the ebook versions of those books were only available direct from Baen. Other than that, I usually don't know what company (if any) published the book I'm reading...nor do I care. In the days before the Internet, I would choose books based on browsing the book store/library, or (rarely) because of a recommendation from someone else. I belonged to the Science Fiction book club for a few years, and got some good books from there, but I have no idea who published them, and not every book from there was to my taste.
I truly think that most people are more like DiapDealer and I in this regard. They don't know, or care, who published the book. They just read it. They go by recommendations from friends, (or celebrities), or they have a favorite author or genre, and that's it.
Shari