Perish before you publish

Book industry is now at an all-time low. Real writers have a very tough time publishing their books. In fact, their odds increase everyday with the already dumbed-down publishing houses now targeting the lowest common denominator.


"Publishing is in a well documented state of economic and structural chaos and worried about whether its physical end-product will even exist in the future. In short, it's now dealing with the problems that my own industry - magazines - faced seven years ago. Sadly, the book industry seems to be responding in the same way - by retreating into safe, middle of the road ideas and a particularly stubborn intransigence.

It didn't work for magazines - dumbing down content and aiming for the lowest common denominator didn't boost any existing title's ABC - and it won't work for books either. The good titles that do get published are too often lost in an attempt to make them look unthreateningly "mainstream"."

Read the whole article at Justin Quirk's blog