Comments on: Will publishers live on?

By: Cas Stavert

Cas Stavert — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 18:17:00 +0000

I've been ruminating on this issue for a while, particularly in the light of Ms Scanlon's response.Then suddenly today, it occurred to me that the future is already here and it's called Fanfiction.net, the largest archive of the internet where people publish their fiction for free. And you know what? 99.999999999% of it is so bad it makes your eyeballs bleed. Now this is largely because most of it is written by teenage girls writing about true lurve and Harry Potter, but just imagine if Miss Snark's slushpile, instead of going through the gatekeeper, all published their books on their websites and called themselves "published authors". Fanfiction readers and writers deal with this problem by having, in addition to ff.net many smaller, specialised archives, often with high quality thresholds (although not as high as for commercial fiction - nobody gets paid, remember) Is this the future we really want for books? Sure the more enterprising publishers may morph into fiction archives, that you'll probably have to subscribe to in order to read, and everyone else has to use Google to find a book. How is this better?

By: Lynne W. Scanlon

Lynne W. Scanlon — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 22:20:38 +0000

Thanks, Eoin, for stopping by The Publishing Contrarian.
Yes, I am talking about fiction as well as nonfiction. Absolutely.

Lynne AKA The Wicked Witch of Publishing

By: eoinpurcell

eoinpurcell — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 20:11:32 +0000

Thanks Cas,

I think that unquestionably there will be a twin track development. Non-fiction books which will benefit most from linking and other web enabled technology will leap into digital soon and at a pace that may surprise us all. It struck me yesterday that most users of such “books” will be using them either in classes or offices where access to power points for recharge will not be an issue.

Fiction will remain as it is for some time I think. In much the same way as local and commuter newspapers have resisted the draw of the online news supply better than national or regional newspapers. Fiction is stickier, there is less need for it to use the web. You can only physically read one book at a time in any case so why do you need seventy on a flimsy digital device every morning on the train?

By: Cas Stavert

Cas Stavert — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:59:57 +0000

As always, as hugely interesting post, Eoin. I had some issues with what was being said by The Publishing Contrarian, once again, I believe she was thinking in terms of non fiction only. I can see how what she was saying would have more relevence for non fiction. But fiction?

But you’re right, reading all this stuff, I can’t see that it would be an improvement on the current situation for me as a writer.