Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
Cuz "let anyone publish anything" has resulted, in fact, in just about anyone publishing just about anything, and "readers are the only ones qualified to pick" can be an overwhelming, frustrating and wasteful endeavor.
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I finished my last book last night. When I got to about the 75% point I started looking for a next book. I've put about a dozen possible next books on my phone to consider and now I'm deciding which one to start. I have a couple of likely ones in mind but I've decided to put off deciding till tomorrow. I'm not done thinking about that last book. It was especially good.
I think for me the search for a next book is a never ending thing. I'm always doing it but it's a background task and it doesn't get serious till near the end of a book. The thing is I'm always looking at books and I have a very long list of possibles at any given time. I have close to 1,000 books in my Amazon library, none of which are likely to be bad choices and it's a safe bet they're mostly good choices.
None of this really matters. I can just pick a book right now, any book in my library or any other book that strikes my fancy, start reading and it's going to be a good one. That's because I'm always looking. I'm always ready. If I decide to wait before choosing that's a choice I make, not a hardship.
Really looking for good books is part of the fun of reading. I listed the things in my earlier post that guide me. They're all fun. I don't see this as a problem of any kind.
The idea that anyone can publish anything they want is fine with me. There are so many resources available about books that finding good ones isn't a difficult task if you're interested enough to do it.
I have nothing against big publishers. Well, I have a lot against some of the things they do but all in all I think they're a good and important part of our culture. I have nothing against the idea or practice of self publishing. I'm sure that introduces a lot of problems as well. I think the reading situation today is probably better than it's ever been. And it's been very good during my 76 years.
If I could change anything it would be the importance of genre. Book stores didn't organize books by genre when I was younger. I was in my 40s before that began. Books were just books. We learned to judge them by what they were about; what they had to say, not by some artificial and limiting category. Book stores had a non-fiction section and a fiction section and hidden away in the back was the very disreputable science fiction section.
Genre was an obscure topic you might see mentioned in a scholarly review but rarely elsewhere. Other than that the book situation has improved greatly.
Barry