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#1 by Anonymous (Nobody) at 07 Apr 2014 16:29:30 GMT
| Mayowa wrote:The blockbuster metilatny not only hurts the midlist, it also floods the market with endless clones of popular works (Twilight and Harry Potter are great, it’s the gagillion clones of them on the market that are bad).But this has always been the case: there have always been similar books published, with the claim that they are best-seller clones: thing is, if they didn't sell well, they wouldn't get published. You might not like those books but plenty of people do, otherwise they wouldn't be published.So publishing posseses the necessary profit mindedness to make tough decisions to maximize profit. At the same time it is one of the most inefficient industries around. Policies like heavy bookseller discounting and late royalty payments which are inefficient remain in constant use. Publishing has to maximise profit in order to stay in business. It's just like any other business. And I dispute that it's one of the most inefficient industries around : yes, it does have its inefficiencies but I don't think they're any worse than any other large business, and things like large retailer discounts and late payments are common in business these days most of my family is self-employed, and they all complain of such goings-on.Diversity in industry employees (and consequently books remains at a terrible low.Here you're right. But is that only true of publishing? I think not.No offense to the reading public, but the industry shapes literary discourse because readers can only buy books they hear about. Saying the industry satisfies readers is ingenuous at best and gives readers little credit for their capacity to enjoy books that are not populist drivel. If the business published books which the reading public wasn't interested in spending money on it would very quickly go down the tubes. You're insulting both readers and writers with your populist drivel comment, but you're also kind of proving my point: if those books are populist then that means they're popular. The drivel is your judgement on them: but if all books published were ones you want to read, what would all those people who don't share your reading preferences have to read? It seems that they make up a bigger part of the book-buying public than you do, so perhaps you can see the fallacy in your argument.The industry is only fine if you’re a part of it.And this is revealling in so many ways. |
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