Pet Peeves of the Publishing Industry
I’m
annoyed by how nice everyone in the publishing is. Really. I’m sure
there are some rude people, but I haven’t encountered them. Only nice
folks, and that makes it hard to dislike the publishing industry as a
whole. It’s much easier when you see “publishing” as this monolithic
beast with a stranglehold on creativity, especially your own creativity.
But that’s just not the case.
Which means there are two realities you have to face about publishing.
One,
that it’s not out to get you. It’s not prejudiced against you. If it
rejects you there are reasons for doing so, and not because the people
are mean, jealous and spiteful.
Two,
the publishing industry is trying to do something very, very difficult.
Namely promote art, entertainment, and creativity, all while still
keeping the lights on. Anyone who has tried to support themselves via
their creative output knows how difficult this is. Now multiply that
difficulty—think about trying to support an entire company, or even an
entire industry, on creative work. It’s insanity, and I’m surprised
publishing companies have been as successful as they have.
Really,
think about it for a second. We’re not talking about selling widgets
here. We aren’t talking about the success of an industry that sells
bathroom cleaner. There’s nothing predictable about books. As long as
the bathroom cleaner works, and as long as you market it, then you’re
going to do alright. The same can’t be said about books. Even if a book
is good, and even if you market it, there’s no guarantee it’s going to
sell enough to warrant its investment. Now consider the fact bathroom
cleaner companies don’t have to reinvent their product hundreds of times
a year, and publishing companies do, and you see it’s sheer madness
this whole industry works at all.
OK,
it’s not a perfect analogy. The way publishing company’s sell their
back catalogue and the works of established authors operates a lot like
selling widgets. Pretty reliable. But still, publishing is trying to do
something very challenging—balancing the demands of art and commerce,
which have, as Linds Redding noted in his must-read post, always been
strange bedfellows. Especially since publishing companies need hits to
thrive and not merely survive, and these companies are completely
unable to predict what the next hit is going to be. No one predicted
Twilight. No one predicted Fifty Shades of Grey. Or Harry Potter.
In
fact, when it comes to the book trade, the only people who have an even
harder time than publishing companies are the authors themselves. While
publishing companies are able to spread their bets across a large
number of different books a year, even an ultra-prolific author isn’t
going to crank out more than a few. The odds a publishing company will
hit a home run on any given year is much higher than the odds a single
author will.
Which,
I suppose, is my biggest pet peeve of the publishing companies. They
survive, while many, if not most, of their authors who fail. An author
can spend their whole life writing books that don’t do spectacularly
well, and that author could easily live a lower compensated, less
comfortable, and less protected life than the employees and owners
running the publishing companies. Publishers take on much smaller risks
than authors. Publishers make small financial gambles, while authors bet
their lives. Yet publishers have much higher upside than authors.
Bear
in mind, this is an institutional issue. No evil genius thought this
up. It’s how pretty much every large creative industry operates—from
books to movies to music. But we’re not powerless here. And I’d like to
see a publishing industry where the authors themselves are better
rewarded, or at least better protected, than the companies that publish
them, as the authors, always, are putting much more on the line.
When
you die, your spirit wakes in the north, in the City of the Dead.
There, you wander the cold until one of your living loved ones finds
you, says “Goodbye,” and Sends you to the next world.
After her parents die, 12-year-old Sophie refuses to release their spirits. Instead, she resolves to travel to the City of the Dead to bring her mother and father’s spirits back home with her.
Taking the long pilgrimage north with her gruff & distant grandmother—by train, by foot, by boat; over ruined mountains and plains and oceans—Sophie struggles to return what death stole from her. Yet the journey offers her many hard, unexpected lessons—what to hold on to, when to let go, and who she must truly bring back to life.
After her parents die, 12-year-old Sophie refuses to release their spirits. Instead, she resolves to travel to the City of the Dead to bring her mother and father’s spirits back home with her.
Taking the long pilgrimage north with her gruff & distant grandmother—by train, by foot, by boat; over ruined mountains and plains and oceans—Sophie struggles to return what death stole from her. Yet the journey offers her many hard, unexpected lessons—what to hold on to, when to let go, and who she must truly bring back to life.
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre – Middle Grade
Rating – PG-13
More details about the author
Website http://craigstaufenberg.com/
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