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New World of Publishing: Small Press Ego
Self-publishing writers think that big publishing will collapse because the self-published writers now find it easy to put up their own books. That belief is so silly that I wasn’t sure if this should be a Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing chapter or a New World of Publishing post. The belief is certainly a new myth. But since it is not hurting too many people yet, I figure it’s not enough of a myth to make the “cows” book yet. Here is the thinking: I can get my own book up now and not have to fight the traditional-publisher’s mess of outsourcing slush to agents and cost-cutting trends, therefore…
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Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing: New York Works as a Quality Filter
Very few of these chapters has dealt with the editor and publisher side of publishing. I know that in fiction publishing there are lots of problems with publishers, and right now picking on them just seems to be like kicking dirt onto a person who is struggling to even figure out how to stay alive. Besides, I have been an editor over the years and I know that stuff just flat goes wrong in publishing houses that is often no one’s fault. But for the most part, even though writers hate to admit it, most of the problems in this business are firmly planted on the writers’ side of the…
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The New World of Publishing: My Biggest Fears
I have numbers of worries and fears about this new world of publishing where writers sometimes create their own publishing company or even publish a story or novel under their own name. And not one of my fears deals with money and how much can be made. Or about cutting through the “noise” as everyone calls it. Or about the problems of beginning writers putting up slush-pile level fiction. I have no worries at all about those and think they are just straw dogs, to be honest. And let me be very clear, I am excited beyond belief with this new world that is shaping up. I believe this new…
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The New World of Publishing: Books Are No Longer Produce
What in the world do I mean books were produce? Well, they have been. And before you go shouting at me because I just insulted your golden book and said it was a banana, let me try to explain what I mean. For a long time, since about the time of the First World War, the release of a book has been treated as an event. The book would have a set release date, and all the push and promotion would be aimed at selling as many copies as possible in the first week or few weeks of the release date. (Bestseller lists are built on velocity of sales, meaning…
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The New World of Publishing: Introduction
For almost a year now in the book chapters of Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing I’ve been pounding on some of the problems I see with traditional publishing and the myths that writers have to deal with. I still have a number of chapters to go in that series, but I felt it was time to start this new topic. Over the last two years, publishing has been starting into a radical shift, a move that for the first few months I just ignored. Michael Stackpole, a friend of mine, had been shouting at a lot of us to wake up for years ahead of that, but I was…