Writing
 Thought
for the Writer's Day: The Future of Publishing
In the old world, publishers selected writers. That
was the way things worked, and I don't believe that
anyone ever really thought to question it. Readers selected
books from their local booksellers' shelf because that
was the only place you could find new books. According
to wiser heads than yours or mine, the books on the
shelves were the best books to be had.
I believe I can prove this was unreasonable. In fact,
I can prove it in one sentence. Ready?
Some books go out of print within a year or two.
Now, maybe I'm stupid, but if I could successfully
pick the very best books written this year, I'd tentatively
venture to suggest that very few of them would struggle
to keep an audience for a decade at least
Yet some published books are flops. Publishers get
it wrong sometimes. I can't blame them. I'd make for
a lousy publisher. I'm sure I'd make much poorer decisions
than Simon and Schuster or Random House. Choosing books
that the public want is a thankless task.
So why do publishers still try to do it?
Now that the Internet is here, they don't need to.
It's much easier to let audiences decide what they like,
and then print the winners on paper. Those are the books
you want to put on shelves.
I'm not talking about best-selling books. It's a no-brain
decision to publish the next Michael Crichton. I'm talking
about new, unknown authors.
As far as I can see, publishers have three choices
here. They can give the public what it wants, or they
can give the public what they guess it wants, or they
can give the public what they think it ought to have.
The whole point of American Invisible is to demonstrate
what happens when you let people choose what they want.
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