How is having a huge cable TV lineup a bad thing? Does it confuse me as to whether to watch a good show like Deadwood or crapola like reality TV? No, it doesn't and the same principle applies to fiction. I'd much rather have numerous titles and publishers than the progressive standardization and homogeneity I see at Borders and B&N. I agree that POD, being an accessible technology, has definitely opened the floodgates for all sorts of unreadable trash, but it's not as if a savvy reader won't be able to tell whether he should buy the latest "gem" from Lulu.com or Charlie Huston's newest offering.
On a personal note, the advent of POD has allowed me to buy numerous titles (new and reprints) that I'd otherwise never found at my local bookstore. To name a few in the genre we discuss on this list: James Reasoner's Dust Devils and Texas Wind (the original first printing is impossible to find), Wildside Press's pulp reprints or new publishers like New Pulp Press. More recently, I discovered a very interesting mainstream fiction collection by a new author, Mikulas Kolya, titled "Men-Art-War." A trusted friend recommended it to me. Seeing how it was published through iUniverse, I'd have never picked it up otherwise.
-Gonzalo.
--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "New Pulp Press" <bassoffj@...> wrote:
>
> *John says* "If publishers/distributors and dedicated genre enthusiasts have to work hard to sift through this mass, separating wheat from chaff, how much effort will the more casual reader be willing to put forth? It's not hard to imagine such readers shortly coming to the conclusion that investing their money and time in anything other than a well known blockbuster is going to be a waste."
>
> Is that what we're really so worried about? That there are so many choices that we will no longer be able to tell good from bad? That we will become paralyzed because bad books are slickly produced so we can't tell the difference? I would like to believe that we are intelligent enough to determine if a book is amateurish or sloppy and not buy that book. And how many of us are really buying books that we haven't heard of simply because the author tells us it is a good book? Probably none. How about depending on word of mouth from a source you trust, whether that be a writer or a friend or a reviewer? Wouldn't you then be willing to check out the book regardless of the publisher? What I seem to be hearing, from you and Kevin, is that the marketers know best. Whatever they stick on display at Barnes and Nobles must be good so that's what we need to buy (Dan Brown, anyone?)
>
> Are there a higher percentage of quality books produced by traditional publishers compared to indy presses? Probably. But are there hundreds of great books that never get picked up by major publishers? Absolutely. We're smart people. We can find those great books. We shouldn't depend on marketers to do it for us.
>
> And Kevin, if you don't know what to do with all those crappy books that people have sent you over the years, I have one suggestion: throw them out.
>
> --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "J.C. Hocking" <jchocking@> wrote:
> >
> > Well, in terms of how a bad book (or a whole lot of them) can hurt, Kevin has a point here...
> >
> > "But for readers all POD represents is an often increasingly
> > bewildering morass of choices...And the advent of self-published ebooks
> > merely means the bar will be set even lower, as to what will be made
> > available."
> >
> > The choice is bewildering for distributors and publishers, too.
> > At this point there are literally thousands of slickly produced POD books, many now outwardly indistinguishable from titles from major publishers.
> > The unfortunate truth is that many of these efforts are shockingly amateurish in everything from plot construction to grammar.
> > If publishers/distributors and dedicated genre enthusiasts have to work hard to sift through this mass, separating wheat from chaff, how much effort will the more casual reader be willing to put forth?
> > It's not hard to imagine such readers shortly coming to the conclusion that investing their money and time in anything other than a well known blockbuster is going to be a waste.
> >
> > John
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: jacquesdebierue <jacquesdebierue@>
> > To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Sat, November 14, 2009 12:58:28 PM
> > Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: state of NY publishing
> >
> >
> > Kevin, how does a bad book exactly hurt you (or anybody)? As to the star system, it never had much to do with quality. It's pure commerce.
> >
> > I am puzzled by your rant about how bad most books are... hasn't it always been so? Pick up the bestsellers of yesteryear and try to read them... I mean bestsellers, not obscure books. Most of them suck, to the point of being unreadable. Then pick up Franz Kafka, who hardly sold anything, and you tell me about literary stardom.
> >
> > I think you are overlooking the sheer randomness of "success". In any case, this list is not about success but about quality. And if that sounds pompous, so be it. Of course, quality and success can go together -- that's the happy ending. But there isn't always a happy ending.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > mrt
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 14 Nov 2009 EST