Saturday 12 January 2013

Oh Noes! It's The Printing Press Disaster All Over Again!

Books for 20p..? Great, yes?
This process is bad for literature says Poole.
"Part of the function of publishers and high-street book shops is to filter manuscripts, to ensure the good float to the surface. It has always been subjective but it has always required both to put their money where their mouth when it comes to books they believe in. Now anyone can self-publish, that is exceptionally important."
Translation: 'OMG! We've got to share our captive market now with just anybody! Even...the hoi polloi!' 

See also: journalists vs bloggers

6 comments:

DJ said...

Filtering, huh?

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/335640.php

I don't think new technology is their biggest problem.

Uncle Badger said...

Utter twaddle! I've had professional connections with book publishers and most of them filter all right: anything Right of the Guardian gets shoved straight back into the slush pile.

Publishing (at least in the UK) is pretty much dominated by Left wing women.

SadButMadLad said...

I thought it was the buying public that did the filtering and highlighted the good books. In other words The Market.

Publishers are notoriously crap at picking winners - just look at how many rejections JKR got before she was published.

The internet has allowed everyone to self publish when before it was only journalists, writers and PR. Its great for "democracy" and allows the buying public to actually decide what they like to read - not self appointed brainless twats.

Edward M. Grant said...

It's just horrible, horrible, that readers now get to choose which books they want to read without any gatekeepers in the way. How can they possibly know whether a book is any good without experts to tell them?

Less sarcastically, in America the trend now seems to be toward higher e-book prices, not lower; the era of putting up any old crap for $0.99 and selling a million copies is over. The UK is probably a couple of years behind on e-book adoption so I'd expect to see the same happen there soon if it hasn't already.

Paul said...

A couple of years ago we had a holiday in New Zealand and were horrified at the price of books. We had gone into a bookshop in Auckland to buy a road atlas and browsed around. A lot of ordinary paperbacks cost $30 or more (about £13+). Fortunately we had our own paperbacks and a well stocked Kindle.

It was like the UK before the net book price agreement was abolished. I seem to remember that paperback books here in the early 1980s cost a fiver or more.

Anyway, whilst I am all for the market being the major driving force, I do have a scintilla of concern for the less commercial, more literary works, which may be swamped out, although I suppose you could argue that these 'less commercial' works can now more easily and cheaply find their way to publication.

Still, whilst I can buy some good books on Kindle for £0.99, they recently had a load of Kurt Vonnegut's books on their daily deal, I am happy.

JuliaM said...

"I don't think new technology is their biggest problem."

*speechless* I'm in the wrong job!

"Publishing (at least in the UK) is pretty much dominated by Left wing women."

I guess that explains the rise of the 'misery porn' phenomenon!

"I thought it was the buying public that did the filtering and highlighted the good books. In other words The Market."

Well, quite! And much though I loathe her, JKR is a good case in point.

"The UK is probably a couple of years behind on e-book adoption..."

Ah, but I think over here, we have VAT on ebooks to contend with...

"Still, whilst I can buy some good books on Kindle for £0.99, they recently had a load of Kurt Vonnegut's books on their daily deal, I am happy."

Oh, there are gems out there. Not so much the covers, though:

http://lousybookcovers.tumblr.com/