So I’ve been reading about writing. Or more properly, about publishing. It’s really kind of a fascinating story. The paperback novel, as we know it, is less than a century old. It was essentially invented for soldiers during the Second World War. In the economic downturn after war, it made for a cheaper way for people to buy books.
There were lots of big publishers in the fifties and sixties, and then they started being bought up by large corporations. They became much more bottom-line oriented. And it became much harder to become a fiction author.
In reading about this, it really stands out that it was kind of an incestuous business. Everybody in publishing knew everybody else. You could still send in a manuscript without an agent. You could be discovered—Stephen King didn’t have an agent for his first book. Then things began to change.
These days there are five very large publishers in English. They account for probably about 90 percent of what you see in chain bookstores. They decide what America reads. To publish with them you need an agent. To get an agent you already need a track record of sales.
Independent publishers popped up in the shadow of all of this corporate greed. Some of them have become large and well established. Some are smaller. Some started out by self-publishers who figured out how all of this works and opened the doors to other authors. The result is a bewildering number of publishers.
I’ve finished writing my eighth novel. I haven’t started looking for publishers yet. I really want to get my third novel published first. It was the first one that I thought was really good. (Number two wasn’t bad, and I may get back to it some day.). I haven’t given up on it yet. I’m just looking for small publishers who like unusual stuff.
I haven’t posted here for a while, but the undertaker hasn’t caught up with me yet. Even when he does I’ll still be writing.
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