“Nobody knows nothing.” That’s what scriptwriter William Goldman said about the film industry. And the same could apply to the publishing industry, where the big houses bet megabucks on a few chosen books but commonly neglect the others–especially in crucial areas such as publicity. M.J. Rose, a novelist who’s worked in the industry, has some thoughts on the real victims of ill-informed guesswork. The actual writers. Her article carries the apt title “How Lucky Can You Get?”–a reference to a standard line that agents and publishers use to keep authors in their place amid the chaos.
Clearly we need a more modern distribution system with less dependence on promotion and business relationships and more on the sheer merits of books. Within the e-book market, a standardized consumer format could help by enlarging the markets for individual titles. So could file sharing, so that readers could more easily act on word of mouth (with proper compensation mechanisms in place for writers and publishers). As e-books grew in popularity, such strategies would benefit writers and publishers alike.
Of course, if publishers want to do Vegas, a library approach could accommodate them–via a pay-to-play-to-the-max system that would raise the upper limits for compensation while along the way making more money available for “smaller” books. Remember, in Vegas, the house is the true winner. But here we might well see another twist–namely, that the industry found itself with more best-sellers, because it had more incentive to do justice to the minnows with whale potential.
(Rose article spotted via PublishersLunch.)
