The Incredible Shrinking Publishing Industry

[DavidDvorkin]

You guys may find this interesting. Or depressing, which is how I reacted to these numbers:

http://eyeblister.blogspot.com/2007/02/incredible-shrinking-publishing.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. The media has seen an incredible consolidation

and novel publishers are no exception

That is why many otherwise talented writers are now looking at self publishing

[DavidDvorkin]

2. Both production and distribution of fiction

There used to a number of distributors. Now there are, I think, two major ones.

And of course we all know what's happened to bookstores. Independents have closed down, and huge chains -- mainly Barnes & Noble -- now dominate retail storefronts. Online, Amazon dominates.

Self-publishing isn't a substitute for the way things once were: numerous independent publishers, not fixated on producing a small number of bestsellers, and independent bookstores. Self-publishing doesn't get large numbers of books in front of the buyers of books the way the old sytsem did.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Yes but you listed why people are looking at self publishng

the fixation on the few best sellers and the reliable selling authors has led to a dry out of oportunities for new writers

Hell even the usual starting points, aka magazines and the glossies are doen to a few and at that... no longer publish new authors, for the most part

[DavidDvorkin]

4. True

At least in the case of magazines, there are now online magazines, especially in the sf/f/h genres. There are also some new specialty anthologies and quarterly magazines published via POD. Those are small markets, and obviously they won't get someone the attention that publication in, say, Saturday Evening Post did decades ago, but they have the potential of getting one's work seen. That's especially true in the case of online magazines, although only a few of those seem to have established a reputation as serious/worthwhile/respectable (I'm searching for the right word) publications.

At one time, I was hoping that small publishers, such as Wildside Press, which has published my most recent books, would start getting wider attention, but that doesn't seem to be happening. That's at least partly because the distribution and retail outlets are dominated by so few players. There are some small publishers, such as Meisha Merlin, which seem to be successful at selling mass-market rights to the big boys.

I also used to hope that book self-publishing and small-press publishing would be able to establish themselves the way independent label music publishing and self-produced CDs have, but for whatever reason that hasn't happened.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. There are two reasons for that

1.- Many a writer believes that Self Publishing is a vanity press. This is not so... but they buy the hype... and preserve things the way they are... even if there are less and less venues that will even give them the time of day.

2.- The major players have it in their interest to prevent the rise of alternative media... (and for the record the music industry only went there once some of the major players went there)

3.- I am willing to bet that it will take off when POD IN BOOKSTORES is done as a legitimate publishing exercise... in some ways the technology is getting to the point that Ingram's may very well be challenged under the promise of few remnants if any.

And there is another one, in case you have not guessed it, my brother in law and I are writers, and we were discussing this tonight. Due to the dumbing down of the population, books that were published even twenty years ago would not see the light of print today. They are... how shall I put it nicely... too complex?

What is more, nuanced endings or bad endings are no longer published. Heck I just got a rejection from Analog, and they did not like the ending in the story... somebody committing suicide is not something they will publish these days, even if oh even ten years ago they would.

Of course this is a rant that you could get me into and I could spend hours on this... mostly out of frustration... but I am guessing, that if Robert Heinlein was starting today he'd never see the light of day as a published author.