Conversation

Most books (including all of mine) sell less less than 5000 copies because that’s what they deserve not because they need a 2 year ooga booga. Most books should get low quality, quick production if the material even deserves bookification, and get polished post-publication
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The industry is built on unnecessary authorial Stockholm syndrome around a game of gatekeepers generally not worth playing for 90% who try. Self-publish, keep 10x more of the money, ditch quality fetishes unless you like doing it yourself, save trees.
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Totally agree. Also a big difference between fiction and non-fiction. This presumes the fiction process where you submit works. The non-fiction process where you propose works is severely broken—like proposing a company to an investor who then gets involved in random details.
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Yes. It is also one thing to sell 5000 copies and quite another to have 5000 subscribers in a community. If you're an author, even counting advances, a 5000 person press run is roughly the same as 500 (not 5000) substack community for 2 years. And you're in complete control.
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Also all this would make more sense if the percentage of good books from NY publishers was either high or improving over time. It is not. And ironically there's more concentration and fewer decision makers than ever.
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