Quote:
Originally Posted by drplokta
You've never read a publisher's slushpile, have you? Most of the bad is simply bad, not something that is not to one publisher's personal taste, but that another person might like.
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What I'm trying to point out is that reading the slush pile and other editorial works are only one expense in modern publishing. When somebody figures out how to peel that expense out and make it self-standing, the rest of the edifice will collapse. To be quite frank, fancy New York addresses, literary parties, big executive salaries, have nothing to do with selecting and polishing books, e or p. Nor to agents have anything to do with writing a book.
The biggest problem for current writers is existing art. Why buy (and pay a premium) for new art when older art is so plentiful? Close to a million books are published a year nowadays, and even 50 years ago, there were 10's of thousand. Even ignoring piracy, go to American Booksellers Exchange (
www.abe.com) and search for obscure books. There are literally millions of titles available, most at modest prices. From a readers perspective, it's just like a infinitely large bookstore. Shucks, look at the Project Gutenbergs, or here. 10's of thousands of books for free. It's only stretched copyright laws in the last 50 years keeping it from being millions. (If the Us hadn't changed it's copyright law in 1978, anything from 1954 on back would be P.D.)
The old publishing model was - find an author that will sell, publish him for a while, when he stops selling as much as the publisher likes, replace him with another, and let the first one drop out of print. Once out of print, the author is forgotten after a while, and is no longer a threat to new publishing, as nobody could easily find the out-of-print books, even if they wanted to.
Well, the world has changed, and the old ways aren't ever going to come back....