From Ann Kjellberg, editor Who decides and how what books get published? It’s always been a bit of a mystery. It’s plain, as with movies, that no one has a magic formula: books that publishers bet big on flop, books that publishers did not anticipate would do well take off, careers that seemed to languish turn around. In the lively and eclectic world of self-publishing, writers often argue that editors at the major houses are out of touch with their readers and miss waiting audiences, especially in the so-called genres, like mystery and science fiction and romance. Writers of published genre fiction have been overwhelmingly white, but self-published writers of other ethnicities have proved that non-white readers have been waiting to see their experiences in such books.
The notion of "comps" reminds me of movie elevator pitches. I'm more despairing about the biz and the future of literature than is AK, herself a literary saint. Reading is a pleasure that doesn't fit, or even make sense, in a life of screens and texts and instantaneity. To so many, it doesn't even resemble a pleasure. The problem at a higher level is media monopoly--those five publishing giants says it all.
The notion of "comps" reminds me of movie elevator pitches. I'm more despairing about the biz and the future of literature than is AK, herself a literary saint. Reading is a pleasure that doesn't fit, or even make sense, in a life of screens and texts and instantaneity. To so many, it doesn't even resemble a pleasure. The problem at a higher level is media monopoly--those five publishing giants says it all.