Welcome to the new Daily Loaf book blog, the place for intelligent readers to find new books. Obviously, you’re an intelligent reader, because you’re here. Congratulations.
Once upon a time, the publishing world was ruled by a few humongous publishing companies in New York. They published brilliant work that made the world shinier and golden, and were financially supported by the sale of commercial, forgettable, schlock. Fair enough — a company’s got to make money somewhere. Unfortunately, these publishers decided, as most publicly-traded companies will, that profits are more important than product.
Fine for them, but it turns out that these days cheap entertainment is easy to come by. Publishers throw down huge advances on celebrity authors and let best-sellers pick up the slack. Book publishers are losing money. The BEA has shrunk to the size of a sprocket vendor convention. Major publishers are dropping literary authors, and accepting fewer manuscripts. Royalties and advances are dropping for everyone but celebs, let alone those of us goofy enough to write "literary work" (hereinafter referred to as "Booknerd Books").
The emphasis on marketability — over experimentation and awesomeness — as these behemoths clamber for the next Twilight means that very soon MacMillan, FSG, Random House, Penguin, and the rest will stop publishing books Bookgeeks want to read.
It is not your imagination. The sky is falling.
But never fear, Chicken Littles, because the sky falling isn’t the end. It just means it’s time to hang a new one, and it doesn't have to be the same old sky. A green one? We can do that. Want a purple sky with swirling bunnies? We can do that, too. It isn’t that nobody nowadays would have published Finnegan’s Wake, or that no one would have ever heard of David Foster Wallace if the publishers of a few years ago had suffered the paralysis gripping New York today. Those books would find a home today — with indie presses.
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2010.