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[QUOTE=BooksForABuck;85016]
On the notion that publishers add no value, let me suggest that the quality of the edited material publishers generate is significantly higher than the quality of the input we receive. Publisher value comes from: (1) wading through the slush pile to pick works that meet our quality standards; (2) working with the author to edit the works to an even higher quality level; ..........
I'll agree that wading through publishers' slush files is worth money. But I seriously question the amount of time that publishers work with authors to edit their works to an even higher quality. And I also question the amount of proofreading that publishers do today.
A year or so ago on vacation, I bought one of Tony Hillerman's paperback novels. The spelling errors, even in today's world of computerized spell checkers, I could deal with. But when a paragraph was repeated about halfway through the book, and some of the prose was simply awful, I trash-canned it.
And this example is by no means isolated.
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