This discussion highlights the distinction: Bestselling hacks
are bestSELLING authors, not bestWRITING authors.
A few bestwriting authors are also bestselling authors, so
all is not yet lost.
Jacques Debierue wrote:
>
> --- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
> <mailto:rara-avis-l%40yahoogroups.com>,
DJ-Anonyme@... wrote:
> >
> > Many have claimed that publishers are looking
for what will sell. It
> > has also been pointed out that a lot of good
writers, while published,
> > have been dropped by their publishers for lack
of sales and that some of
> > the bestselling authors are not very good
writers. So are the
> > publishers to blame or book buyers?
> >
> > Yes, this is a bit simplistic, ignoring
promotion and advertising,
> > chasing short term profits at the expense of
slowly building an
> > audience, etc, but can we really complain about
publishers publishing
> > crap that sells without passng at least some of
the blame on to those
> > who are buying the crap?
> >
>
> The responsibility is totally with those who buy the
crap. The writer
> is a worker, and if he
> writes crap that sells, he cannot be blamed for
doing his work (good
> work, according to
> sales). I could lace this with a desire that more
good stuff be
> published, etc., but I don't
> think that desire has any relation to reality. If I
were a publisher,
> I would want to sell. And
> authors, too, want to sell. That's why they write,
mostly. Even if
> money were not a
> consideration (the author is already rich), any
author wants to be read.
>
> Best,
>
> MrT
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 17 May 2007 EDT