The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist
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The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist
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Re: The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist
#2I'll offer a hopeful rejoinder. Perhaps, when AISlop generates enough of the same old story "guaranteed" hits for the mass market (and book covers to go with same), the editors will switch back to something that is novel and unlikely to be generated.
Think about what happens when you feed the first few books of a series into long context llm, along with their audience interests, pitch lines, plot summaries and character guides. When each element is multi-shot rather than zero-shot.
Re: The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist
#3The clickbait title refers to a day in fall 1995 when a Random House editor was told by his boss that the business could no longer afford to publish modestly-selling books (~10,000-40,000 copies), marking the moment when corporate scale killed the old risk-taking culture of publishing.
Re: The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist
#4Interesting history but what's going on now is so crazy as a reader. Amazon kindle publishes 7500 new books daily. There's no longer gatekeepers like in the article.
About two years ago I was searching for a new sci-fi book to read - I routinely rotate genres. I did my research in goodreads and started reading a trilogy that was highly rated. Holy crap it was so bad a quit about halfway through the second book. I went back to goodreads and the rating since my last visit had dropped drastically. A bot campaign or something fooled me, I guess.
I've since just started reading older stuff, before the 2000s. I'd try to find a gatekeeper to filter newer stuff for me but everything seems corrupt - even the Hugo awards gets scammed by influence campaigns.
Re: The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist
#5This is not specific to publishing. The diagram tells the story: it's consolidation. Consolidation is bad. Giant companies are bad. In publishing as in other domains.
Re: The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist
#6Interesting history but what's going on now is so crazy as a reader. Amazon kindle publishes 7500 new books daily. There's no longer gatekeepers like in the article. About two years ago I was searching for a new sci-fi book to read - I routinely rotate genres. I did my research in goodreads and started reading a trilogy that was highly rated. Holy crap it was so bad a quit about halfway through the second book. I wen…
> I'd try to find a gatekeeper to filter newer stuff for me but everything seems corrupt
Word of mouth is the best way to do this, among friends who read similar things to you.
Even if you're recommended something you end up not liking, it's not because they're malicious, their tastes are just not the same as yours - and after awhile, you learn to adapt. Friend A recommends a space opera? Great, you have very similar tastes. They recommend a horror novel? Eh, you know that what they consider to be good horror isn't what you do, so you skip that one.
Re: The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist
#7Interesting history but what's going on now is so crazy as a reader. Amazon kindle publishes 7500 new books daily. There's no longer gatekeepers like in the article. About two years ago I was searching for a new sci-fi book to read - I routinely rotate genres. I did my research in goodreads and started reading a trilogy that was highly rated. Holy crap it was so bad a quit about halfway through the second book. I wen…
> I'd try to find a gatekeeper to filter newer stuff for me but everything seems corrupt Word of mouth is the best way to do this, among friends who read similar things to you. Even if you're recommended something you end up not liking, it's not because they're malicious, their tastes are just not the same as yours - and after awhile, you learn to adapt. Friend A recommends a space opera? Great, you have very similar…
I actually do do that and we all recommend each other older stuff we read years ago. :)
These are some of my most recent conversations: "try Raymond Feist's Magician series" "I'm reading the Book of the New Sun series now" "I read the Pendragon Cycle (she's English and obsessed with King Arthur stories) in high school and liked it but now it's a weird right-wing tv show"
These are all old books but still super enjoyable. (Except maybe book of the new sun - kind if a bummer)
Re: The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist
#8The 90s aren't coming back to publishing. The audience who reads multiple books a month is going the way of the classical symphony attendee.
Re: The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist
#9The 90s aren't coming back to publishing. The audience who reads multiple books a month is going the way of the classical symphony attendee.
The opera, symphony, and ballet sell out every performance where I live. Me, my friends, wife, etc all read multiple books per month. To me it feels like the problem is in the supply-side - there's just endless content being constantly published - more than could ever be read.
Re: The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist
#10Interesting history but what's going on now is so crazy as a reader. Amazon kindle publishes 7500 new books daily. There's no longer gatekeepers like in the article. About two years ago I was searching for a new sci-fi book to read - I routinely rotate genres. I did my research in goodreads and started reading a trilogy that was highly rated. Holy crap it was so bad a quit about halfway through the second book. I wen…
Not that this is the perfect fix, but at least for sci-fi books you can usually look the Hugo Award winners[0] for ones that are solid. Not all of them are my cup of tea, but I have found that I definitely love some of the series that are found there. I'm sure there are other award types per genre that could help point you to some as well. Not that these can't be gamed, or sponsored or whatever, but at least it is a good starting point that is (¿maybe?) less prone to bot bias campaigns.