I've been following big publishing for some time.
They brought it all on themselves. I feel no pity for them.
In fact I wish them bad things..
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I've been following big publishing for some time.
They brought it all on themselves. I feel no pity for them.
In fact I wish them bad things..
Yep, nothing but snobs and thugs trying to tell the world what it SHOULD want to read.
Sorry but the publishing community is primarily made up of people who love and value books. I'm getting a little tired of these publisher-bashing comments delivered by people who have never worked in publishing. Almost all publishing decisions are made based on consumer interest. What goes on behind the scenes with bookstore placement, co-op advertising, author platforms, course adoption, chain orders, return policies and national promotions tied to specific campaigns driven by consumer interests will never be impacted by self-published authors. Like never. I could go on but there's no point. Self-publishing definitely does not have the stigma it had five years ago but there are still gatekeepers: the readers.
Funny how no one but people who've worked in the industry tend to feel that way. Publishing brought in "models" created the idea that an author must fit in a "genre" and essentially dumbed down literature in the second half of the 20th century. So, you'll pardon me if I disagree.
BTW, not saying they don't value books. Lots of people in govt want to help people, doesn't keep them from making a royal mess of it at every chance.
Traditional publishing nowadays is all about crossover genres as more editors and publishers are exposed to global trends originating out of the Frankfurt Book Fair for example. And yes, I agree that much of North American literature during the second half of the 20th century was dumbed down to attract the largest numbers of readers but this wasn't the case in other countries. Read a few English-language translations of Finnish, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese novelists. They didn't conform to any one genre nor were they edited to death by white, straight male editors who formed the establishment of the 50s, 60s and 70s. How do publishers make a royal mess at every chance? I read amazing works by writers published by FSG, Europa, Bloomsbury, Gray Wolf and other literary presses. There are so many incredible works of fiction out there. I'm currently reading Judas by Israeli author Amos Oz (incredible) and The Three Body Problem, a sophisticated sci-fi novel by Cixin Liu which won the Hugo in 2015.
If trad pub is becoming about cross genres, so what? Indie writers blazed that trail. The only thing they have left is to cover their own asses as their ship goes down. I know dozens of authors who pay their bills with ebook sales, if they converted those royalties into trad pub, they couldn't pay for lunch. It's a dying industry and thank God it is, it's about time.
They're not going down any time soon. The large publishers are buying up the medium-sized houses and forging alliances with non-publishing companies in order to take on a larger share of the market. E-books plateaued two years ago and the big comeback is in beautifully designed books and reprinted classics. Best news is that small independent bookstores are coming back!
Fully agreed. Yet, they are being replaced by a new set of thugs with a tremendous amount of power. It's time to disrupt the disrupters.