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TIL Making a living writing books is more or less as rare as becoming a billionaire
(www.theintrinsicperspective.com)
this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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The part that isn't mentioned in this article is the onus of marketing. Now that anyone can self publish with almost no overhead, more than a million books are published every year. How many of those even get noticed? Sometimes it feels like people see the same 10-20 books on the bestseller list (which is gameable btw) and think that's all there is to read.
These days, traditional publishers don't do any marketing on behalf of authors unless they feel it's a sure thing, similar to how they give out advances. If you are already famous or have large social media following, you're far more likely to get an advance or a marketing effort. Everyone who self publishes, and even most who are traditionally published, have to do their own marketing. Most writers are not marketers, and this is where they fail, no matter how good their book might be.
Personally, I think the big publishers will collapse soon and the whole industry might move to a subscription model ala Spotify. That would probably be worse for writers, but no one seems to be able to come up with a solution that makes book writing a more viable career.
Yeah. The social contract used to be that the publisher would do marketing, editing, layout, and physical production, and the author would make the words, and they worked in partnership so they could both make a living.
Now, the author does marketing, editing, and makes the words, and bargain basement third parties do layout and physical production, and the publisher sits in their office chair screaming into their headset "MORE, MORE, I WANT MORE, IT'S NOT ENOUGH", thinking that if they can just shave the margins a little thinner and increase the already-bloated salaries they draw for doing literally nothing, then it'll finally fill the gaping chasm deep within them.