Publishing is broken.

[tuftears]

Here's the story of how an author's book is rejected by a series of publishers due to lackluster sales of previous books. When the author submits manuscript under different name, it is accepted within three days.

I'm just... well. Flabbergasted. This system is broken, if the publishers are blinded by numbers and it takes someone deliberately masking their identity to get them to look at the story. The conventional wisdom is that new writers have it the hardest, after all, since publishers would rather go with a known quantity... But if the known quantities don't sell as well-- and they will inevitably fall off, since publishers will only issue print runs up to the limit of those that sold on the previous book-- then gradually the publishers will ease authors off of their lists.

It's called 'planned obsolescence'. Of writers.

Rebroadcast from marthawells.

Comments

[cjthomas.livejournal.com]

I'm skeptical of the downfall of physical media, myself. I have books that are decades old that I still read. I have a box of 5-1/4" floppies, that I can't now read. And that's not counting books that I've read at my grandmother's place (she gave me an astronomy text from the 1880s; fascinating to read for the historical contrast).

That's part of why I buy hardcopies of books when I can, and pressed (not burned) DVDs when I can. It's also why I keep thinking about ways to store data and media for the really long term. My physical media collection does degrade through use and accidents, but it's still held up better than my virtual media collection.

Among other things, this is why I think print-on-demand is the future of the book industry.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I like print, but I just don't have space to store an infinite number of books! On the other hand, I haven't thrown my lot in with Amazon or B&N yet on who will rule the e-library market by picking either of their tablets.