Comments on: On the Future of Book Publishing http://persephonegreen.com/publishing-the-economy/on-the-future-of-book-publishing/ Musings of a dark fantasy / paranormal romance / urban fantasy writer and reader Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:11:41 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Evangeline http://persephonegreen.com/publishing-the-economy/on-the-future-of-book-publishing/comment-page-1/#comment-2 Evangeline Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:27:59 +0000 http://persephonegreen.com/?p=11#comment-2 I said this back when NY began to melt down and even though I'm a writer, I don't find culling the ranks and editors growing more selective to be a bad thing. I find the situation rather akin to being an Olympic sprinter who enters a high school race knowing they'll easily win: how does the win mean anything if you're not competing against the best? I feel more challenged and alert to write when I've read a really great book rather than when I read a tepid one and say "I can write better than that"--if I can, there's no motivation to get up and write because I already know I can write a better book. But when I see a book who has knocked my socks off, I want to rise to their level and challenge their talent with my own. But I'm competitive that way. *g* What I'd hope is that with a smaller roster of authors, publishers will be more open to diversifying their selection: no more flooding the market with Type A because one book was successful. Call me naive, but the smaller number of books produced, but with a variety of choices for readers to choose from, will be a more accurate litmus test of what readers want rather than throwing a bunch of books at consumers in the hopes that one or two will stick. And maybe Publishers will be more willing to 'grow' their authors. I said this back when NY began to melt down and even though I’m a writer, I don’t find culling the ranks and editors growing more selective to be a bad thing. I find the situation rather akin to being an Olympic sprinter who enters a high school race knowing they’ll easily win: how does the win mean anything if you’re not competing against the best? I feel more challenged and alert to write when I’ve read a really great book rather than when I read a tepid one and say “I can write better than that”–if I can, there’s no motivation to get up and write because I already know I can write a better book. But when I see a book who has knocked my socks off, I want to rise to their level and challenge their talent with my own.

But I’m competitive that way. *g*

What I’d hope is that with a smaller roster of authors, publishers will be more open to diversifying their selection: no more flooding the market with Type A because one book was successful. Call me naive, but the smaller number of books produced, but with a variety of choices for readers to choose from, will be a more accurate litmus test of what readers want rather than throwing a bunch of books at consumers in the hopes that one or two will stick. And maybe Publishers will be more willing to ‘grow’ their authors.

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