Depressing trends in writing/publishing

Phyrebrat

Phyrebrat

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I was going to put this in the publishing forum but I think it'd serve better here.

I've only had a small number of things published and don't even think much about the publishing or agenting stage just yet, but I thought I'd share. Some of these contradict themselves and are surely not black and white arguments, but it might spark an interesting discussion.

» The 10 Major Publishing Trends of 2019

pH
 
Off the top of my head, 7 is definitely correct and strikes me as downright rude. 9 is how I got my agent, but that was a few years ago now. Beyond that, I'm unsure. But yes, like many things, it is vaguely depressing.
 
3 and 7 are true, in my experience. 1 is partially true - it’s still a great platform for certain books and authors. But it’s good to already be established I think, by now.
 
The majority seem to be pertaining to Literary Publications.
The first three sound about par for what would come out of Traditional Publishing.
Keeping in line with this being the author's opinion, I submit my not so informed opinion.

1. The euphoria of self-publishing has worn off
I think as usual there is a gross disregard for how easy Amazon and SmashWords have made publishing.
I'm not sure that it has yet worn off.

2. Imprints of the Big Five publishers are becoming more likely to be closed to unsolicited submissions
Seems like this should have been expected. The notion might have been to try to cut into Amazon and SmashWords with their own brands of combination self publishing and pseudo-traditional publishing. Something like this could only lead to more piles of inferior material and not very helpful when it came to sorting through the mess.


3. eBook Publishing, in general, seems to have stabilized
As Long as this pertains to traditional--I could see this.
I'm not sure that the above number one statement is all that accurate and it might be mostly conjecture on his part, if he does expect to include self publishing in this. In traditional publishing it seems to me that the norm is that the e-book is priced close to a soft cover book and the trend indicates to me the desire to force the sale of hard and soft covered paper books over e-books. So if that's what they mean by stabilizing then I could see that happening.
 
No great surprises there. Most agents have not responded to queries for some years and the difficulty in getting a manuscript to one the big five without an agent is hardly a new trend. The rest appear to be fringe 'trends.'

You could summarise by saying, it's always been hard to get published and it's getting harder.
 
I would have to say that 7 is true, but I've found those agents to be in the minority to be honest, and 9 is the route, more or less, that I'm taking with my first two books.

The points sometimes seems to be interconnected. Because I had my first book published directly with the publisher, as is indicated as a kind of sub-point within point 9, this kind of negates (not entirely but to a significant degree) 7 as the agents are more likely to be engaged.

I'm subbing my WIP (not actually WIP any longer, it's done) at present and I've managed to have proper back-and-forth conversations with several agents rather than just the blank and disheartening sub-and-no-reply process that the unpublished author faces. This is both useful (many have sent me specific feedback, and I've built a small but significant network of contacts) and encouraging.

Also, interestingly, point 4 applies to me, and I assume @HareBrain, because Snowbooks charged £2 to sub to their submissions portal.
 
Point 2 and 9 seem to contradict each other. If publishers don't take submissions anymore, or almost none, but agents will only take you on after you've successfully submitted a book to a publisher. Then eventually you won't have any new authors.
 
Pemry Janes said:
Point 2 and 9 seem to contradict each other. If publishers don't take submissions anymore, or almost none, but agents will only take you on after you've successfully submitted a book to a publisher. Then eventually you won't have any new authors.
Click to expand...

They seem to contradict one another on the surface, but in actual fact I'm not sure that's the case, because a lot of agents get new clients through networks, friends of friends, and other contacts. Certainly that's my interpretation of things, and while it's not exclusive (plenty of people do get picked up from the slush pile) I reckon it's a significant number.

But I agree, it does seem to diminish the chances of first-time authors.
 
Pemry Janes said:
Point 2 and 9 seem to contradict each other. If publishers don't take submissions anymore, or almost none, but agents will only take you on after you've successfully submitted a book to a publisher. Then eventually you won't have any new authors.
Click to expand...

I think it’s making the definition between the big publishers who need an agent and those who can be subbed direct to
 
the article would be a little more engaging if it wasn't written by a writers-services-type person trying to drum up business by telling us all how ****ed we are on our own ...
 
Some rules rule , like it or not . It is the rule of supply and demand . There are more would be writers than there ever was . But the number of pople willing to pay to read has gone down . There was a big drop in the number of pople willing to pay for music . The music industry has begun to recover by concentrating on a smaller number of current acts , and streaming . The book market is different to music , but I believe the industry will continue to consolidate with a smaller number of authors . The writers outside of the main industry will continue to publish independently , but will find it hard to earn any money.
 
Few writers ever made a living off their writing. Same goes for musicians, painters, sculptors, and so on. Far more artists than there are consumers of art, with the sole exception of television. And radio, once upon a time--the stories of the early days of radio are sometimes funny, the stations were absolutely desperate to fill up broadcast time. They were literally pulling people in off the street. That changed after a couple decades, of course.

For writers, the big change came before ebooks, it came with the demise of newspapers and magazines. That's where a great number of writers were able to make a living while writing the Great American Novel. They supplemented that with writing for radio and television (both far more hungry for material than movies were), plus advertising copy, which was still heavily print. That started to fade in the 1960s and got steadily worse through the 1970s and 1980s. Now the opportunities for writing outside of novels are more restricted that ever.

This has an effect on writing itself. Earlier generations of writers did more than just write novels, but most of us now have our novels and maybe our short stories, and they're all set in our own genre with an occasional foray, but we just don't have the breadth of experience any more, and it's not likely to come back in the forseeable future.
 
The market is over-saturated. As a reader, how are you supposed to find the best markets? That means many of the best markets struggle to survive. With resources like Duotrope and The Submission Grinder, it's easier for writers to find them.

Some literary journals and contests make ridiculous amounts of money by ripping off writers. Some prizes are highly-regarded, yet charge high fees to enter.

I know some slush-piles are ridiculously high, and sympathise with that, but can't believe magazines don't have time to send out rejections. It takes seconds to send a form-rejection e-mail, and it's only polite given a writer has sent their work to them. I bet a lot of such markets don't pay either.
 
sknox said:
Few writers ever made a living off their writing. Same goes for musicians, painters, sculptors, and so on. Far more artists than there are consumers of art, with the sole exception of television. And radio, once upon a time--the stories of the early days of radio are sometimes funny, the stations were absolutely desperate to fill up broadcast time. They were literally pulling people in off the street. That changed after a couple decades, of course.

For writers, the big change came before ebooks, it came with the demise of newspapers and magazines. That's where a great number of writers were able to make a living while writing the Great American Novel. They supplemented that with writing for radio and television (both far more hungry for material than movies were), plus advertising copy, which was still heavily print. That started to fade in the 1960s and got steadily worse through the 1970s and 1980s. Now the opportunities for writing outside of novels are more restricted that ever.

This has an effect on writing itself. Earlier generations of writers did more than just write novels, but most of us now have our novels and maybe our short stories, and they're all set in our own genre with an occasional foray, but we just don't have the breadth of experience any more, and it's not likely to come back in the forseeable future.
Click to expand...

True. I started writing in the 80s, when there were still a lot of avenues for writers. I sold short stories, sports articles, a weekly self-syndicated humour column to regional newspapers (which went well into the 90s), greeting card sayings and Tshirt slogans. I never made enough money to live on, and had to develop a 'real' career, but it was nice getting cheques here and there and the writing experience was invaluable. It's a shame a lot of those markets have dried up.

I write novels these days (and unsold screenplays), but I do get pleasure from my writing blog and unpaid humour and pollical pieces I write for an online magazine. I have had a couple of science fiction novels published, but I am not tied to that genre and feel it's important to write in a broad range of formats and explore different subject matter.
 
As an independent author/publisher none of this article speaks to me, because it fails to address how being published by tradpub means the author has lost all control over their intellectual property.

The questions of importance are how to capitalize on ones intellectual property, which is how a writer makes money.
 
Ashley R said:
As an independent author/publisher none of this article speaks to me, because it fails to address how being published by tradpub means the author has lost all control over their intellectual property.

The questions of importance are how to capitalize on ones intellectual property, which is how a writer makes money.
Click to expand...

I actually think this is incredibly important and often overlooked
 
Ashley R said:
As an independent author/publisher none of this article speaks to me, because it fails to address how being published by tradpub means the author has lost all control over their intellectual property. The questions of importance are how to capitalize on ones intellectual property, which is how a writer makes money.
Click to expand...

So, are you suggesting self-publishing is the way to go, or what?

I ask out of ignorance,

K2
 
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