Anyone using the “he’s successful and deserves this, MERIT! MERIT!” or “ITS JUST BUSINESS!” arguments must not understand how this industry (and a lot of other industries) work. Success begets more success, sure. But, and stay with me here... Initial. Success. Is. Manufactured.https://twitter.com/FondaJLee/status/1378852261342846977 …
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The decision of which books will be the bestsellers/mid list/etc is made in house and the marketing budget allocated accordingly. You’ll hear all about the lead titles and think that’s because they’re the best books of the year, but they’re just the ones with the biggest budget
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And yes, of course word of mouth plays a part. But word of mouth has to start somewhere. If no one is reading it, no one is talking about it, and a big budget buys lots of readers who can then talk about it, building a word of mouth storm no book with a small budget can emulate
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Four fancy arcs to build a big publicity storm for a book whose author is already a major success, while other authors miss out on that marketing budget and in many cases on physical arcs altogether, just further widens the gap between the big name authors and everyone else
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If that was down to merit it wouldn’t be quite as enraging, but it’s not. It’s a choice. To pool resources behind certain people and leave the rest to founder. Publishing companies choose to put their money behind what they think will sell/already is/best fits the marketing boxes
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Without considering that not only are those choices often made with unexamined biases in play, but that they actually have the power to change this, to manufacture success for someone whose work doesn’t fit the narrow boxes
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The intersection of marginalisation and the business practice of putting all the money behind a very few already successful names and leaving the rest to sink or swim on their own is not a happy place.
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It’s frustrating enough to know your next advance will be decided by your sales which is decided by the marketing budget you had no control over, so when those marketing decisions predominantly elevate a specific narrow portion of the community ... the industry needs to change
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Additional and excellent example of how this becomes a vicious cycle and a self-fulfilling prophecy of “what sells”https://twitter.com/HiuGregg/status/1379361660574560257 …
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Guess that explains why amazon's search function is so horrible. Trying to find wlw-themed novels is a fucking slog through a swamp full of crocodiles, and the recommendations also only show typical attractive straight white person romances ;;
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Gosh yes. So difficult!
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Cakesmith
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