Anthony Horowitz: Do we still need publishers?

[ngrant]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/book...MCBKSTXT13550I

A thoughtful and thought-provoking article by an author I admire, and not just for Foyle's War...!!!

[Gardenman]

Are there ebooks of Foyle's War. I saw some of the TV series and loved it.

[Giggleton]

The article comes off as a bit pretentious IMO. No we probably don't need publishers at the scale we had need needed them pre-digital. But as filters/editors/marketers they can still serve a purpose. A very important one.

[RainingLemur]

I agree. They're needed, but not as much as they were.

[Penforhire]

I'd like to see sites such as Goodreads or LibraryThing become our filtering agents. If we could assign a "weight" to members whose reviews we like we could get a weighted average rating for books we haven't read (sort of like Doctorow's "Wuffie" system, which would serve us well throughout the internet).

[Belfaborac]

That wouldn't do a lot for me, as I hardly ever read reviews. Reading enough of them to get a feel for different reviewers, to the extent that I could assign them varying importance or weight is totally out of the question. So I, at least, need publishers, albeit preferably in a modified and reduced role and with less power compared to today.

[Phogg]

The article seems confused.
Editors and Publishers are not synonyms.
Presenting a case for the need of editing does exactly zero to show a need for publishers.

Perhaps Mr. Horowitz can also show us how ram's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.

[pwalker8]

In general, most editors work for publishers, not authors. In theory, you could have free lance editors, but historically, authors seem only to pay lip service to editors. Certainly, there are quite a few authors whose works, once they become big enough to ignore the advice of editors, suffer quite a bit. I rather imagine that human nature isn't going to change all that much.

Maybe we should get rid of publishers and the editor (or editor collective) should serve as the imprint. They would still serve as a filter and quality control, but their diminished role compared to publishing houses would allow the autor to retain a fair share from their labours. Authors who forego editing would still exist, aa true indies.

It is hard to see a role for publishers in the electronic era though because publicity, duplication, and distribution are largely being picked up by the retailer. That leaves filtering and editing. Quite frankly, the autor can contract that out rather than being the contractee themselves.

[Belfaborac]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Maybe we should get rid of publishers and the editor (or editor collective) should serve as the imprint. They would still serve as a filter and quality control, but their diminished role compared to publishing houses would allow the autor to retain a fair share from their labours. Authors who forego editing would still exist, aa true indies.

I think that's probably more or less what things will evolve into, over time. What I should have said above is that I need editors, rather than publishers, but I wasn't thinking straight at the time. A common occurrence with me.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Phogg

The article seems confused.
Editors and Publishers are not synonyms.
Presenting a case for the need of editing does exactly zero to show a need for publishers.

True that editors is not synonymous with publishers. But also true is that it is publishers who generally hire professional editors, not authors, and thus editorial services provided by professional editors can be considered synonymous. If it was clear that authors would do so on their own, then synonymity becomes more tenuous, but that isn't the reality.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by Phogg

The article seems confused.
Editors and Publishers are not synonyms.
Presenting a case for the need of editing does exactly zero to show a need for publishers.

First I think an article that quite clearly mentions other functions of publishing (marketing, promotion) does not equate it with editing merely because it goes on to argue that editing is perhaps the most useful of these.

Second I think presenting a case for editing does show more than zero need for publishers because left to their own devices authors may decide they don't need editors.

Also he's not just making a case for needing editing, by using as an example a self-published author he's in effect making a case for editing being required by a third party (which doesn't have to be a publisher but usually has been).

I've just read a self-pubbed book which was really badly written and all the way through kept thinking how much it needed an editor, only to find when checking the title page again that an editor was credited. Well clearly it had been proof-read but there were other things that I'd expect an editor to spot, inconsistent use of character names, confusing plot structure, plodding language, uneven tone. But if you're a free-lance editor maybe it's easy to point out a few spelling errors and tidy up a few grammatical problems and not risk upsetting the person who's paying you by pointing out the bigger problems?

[Rob Lister]

The publisher isn't going away. To ape what others here have said, editors (who typically [and rightly] work for the publisher) are still necessary. Sure, authors can hire their own editors (although the problems associated with doing that are numerous and notorious). An author can also arrange for his own distribution, publicity, marketing, legal framework, accounting, and life-cycle management. Even arranging for the production of the meat-copies of the work isn't all that difficult!

An author can do all of these things without the help of an publisher, and may even get lucky and do one or two of them more or less successfully.

Not much time left over to write.

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by latepaul

But if you're a free-lance editor maybe it's easy to point out a few spelling errors and tidy up a few grammatical problems and not risk upsetting the person who's paying you by pointing out the bigger problems?

Latepaul scooped me nicely with that.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by latepaul

I've just read a self-pubbed book which was really badly written and all the way through kept thinking how much it needed an editor, only to find when checking the title page again that an editor was credited. Well clearly it had been proof-read but there were other things that I'd expect an editor to spot, inconsistent use of character names, confusing plot structure, plodding language, uneven tone. But if you're a free-lance editor maybe it's easy to point out a few spelling errors and tidy up a few grammatical problems and not risk upsetting the person who's paying you by pointing out the bigger problems?

There are those who call themselves editors and there are professional editors, that is, those whose only job is as an editor (among other criteria). The entry bar for editing is quite low; really, it is as low as hanging out a shingle and proclaiming oneself to be an editor. Many self-publishing authors do not hire an editor at all. Of those who do hire an editor, many, if not most, have no idea how to locate a professional editor or how to distinguish a professional editor from a nonprofessional editor.

As a professional editor myself (I do not work on fiction at all), I recognize the difficulty. But I would say that it should be pretty obvious that hiring the next-door neighbor who works as an "editor" occasionally and who will edit your 100,000-word novel for $200 (or less) is not hiring a professional editor and that you will get the job that you hired.