Re: Our "publish then filter" future...

Elizabeth K. Burton writes:
> I have to disagree. The model you describe is what makes it extremely
> difficult for non-mainstream publishers to place their books in venues
> where the people most likely to want them will find them: i.e.,
> bookstores, etc.
> 
> Amazon accounts for only 10% of all book sales. That's not nearly enough
> for a publisher to survive. Unfortunately, because the PROCESS of
> print-on-demand has become synonymous with subsidy/vanity publishing,
> books so produced are all lumped together--and tagged as badly written,
> unedited and awful.

So, I think what you're saying is (1) most people buy most books at
bookstores, and (2) that a bookstore provides a critical "filtering
for quality" for the reader, and (3) to accomplish that filtering, the
bookstore operators depend on publishers to sort out the 5% of "good
stuff" from the rest of the dreck, and (4) without that two-level filter,
people will become so disgusted by the amount of junk they encounter,
they may well not buy books at all.  Am I getting that right?

> If a writer has submitted their book to every publisher they can find,
> and been rejected by them all, there's likely very good reason: either
> the book isn't of professional quality or the market for it is so small
> no publisher can afford to take it on. My experience for the last five
> years is that most fall into the first category.

I believe this, but I think that most would-be authors don't know how
to "find" many publishers, so I think this argument is weaker than it
sounds.

Bill

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