Publishing

The only way an author can get credibility is to be published by a major company. The question is (or maybe, should be), why?

The limited distribution channels for other forms of consumable entertainment have been breaking down. Games no longer have to be published by EA to be taken seriously (Braid, every iPhone app ever). Same thing with movies (admittedly to a far lesser extent, but see Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog). But any novel that's not published by a major distributor is ignored if not derided for its amateur nature.

Let's not kid ourselves: publishers are for-profit organizations. When Harry Potter was popular, they published awful kid-wizard dross. When Twilight was popular, they published awful vampire dross. There's also the fact that if you're not a very, very popular author, chances are you'll see maybe $4000 from a book. Yes, publishers soak up a lot of the profits. And you need an agent to deal with the legalities and rights negotiations.

Then there's having to go through editors. It's true that the vast majority of books need a professional quality editor (though from what gets published sometimes you wonder if they took that day off). However, an editor will often make changes based on what he thinks will sell. This may not be the story you want to tell - and do you want to sacrifice your vision for $4000?

All this publisher control means that the author has no ability to do something crazy like distribute it for $1.99 on iTunes. No, on iTunes they're nearly the price of a dead-tree book. Ebooks are better sometimes, going as low as paperback prices. But it's the publisher seeing that money - if an author released their book as an iPhone app for 1.99, he'd see that $4000 from 1400 downloads. Somehow we need to separate book quality from publishers.