gp101
08-18-2005, 01:07 AM
Because I've bought "hot-to" books on writing from Amazon, they sent me an offer to have my manuscript "published" by a company called Book Surge. I think Book Surge is owned by Amazon, or in someway affiliated but I forget how. It looks to me like another print-on-demand type of company.
Fine. As another thread mentioned, these companies are perfect for those personal books people want in print for geneologies or other family-related materials. But of course, a lot of writers tired of waiting on agents and publishers will go the route of P.O.D. That's their prerogative and I'm not knocking them.
But a funny thing happened in my profession, DJing, and I'm wondering if it will occur in publishing. Since the late eighties I've purchased techno records and CDs (and in all the sub-genres of techno, but that's the topic of a different thread) to play at the clubs I worked. My first five years or so I purchased songs or remixes made from a relatively small number of producers that record studios trusted, or from independent labels that knew the genre and the business enough to put out high-quality stuff. There was plenty of good material to select from both the conglomerates and independents. But since then, making music has become a lot easier, and a lot cheaper. You don't need a million-dollar studio anymore. You can professionally produce a band in a home studio with gear costing under ten grand. And for under a thousand dollars, you can buy enough software to make some descent-sounding music on your PC that would be tough to distinguish from the big studio-produced songs (for genres like techno and hip-hop). The result is that there's a hundred times more people producing their own music.
That's important because it gives more artists the chance to be heard and gives consumers more choice. Great, right? Well, the side effect is that along with having more good material to choose from, you have oodles of really bad stuff to sift through. In the late 80s, I'd say I bought maybe one out of every four or five tracks I'd listen to in a record store. By the early 90s, I'd buy maybe one out of eight, and I went from spending a couple hours in a record store to an entire afternoon. By the late 90s, when a lot of on-line record-buying sites popped up, the explosion of home-made music erupted. I'd spend hours on-line listening to material, a lot of it that was just okay but not quite up to par. A lot of it just outright awful. And there were fewer and fewer records that really excited me. By then, I'd choose just one out of every twelve records or so that I'd listen to. And today? I dread shopping for new music. I love finding that nugget I've been waiting for, but it takes so much longer. So now I search less often and buy fewer records. My DJ'ing friends have noted the same trend with the same frustration.
It's exciting to have more options to choose from. But it takes forever to find what you want. Techno has been on a big decline the last few years, and is almost non-existant in some areas and I'm not saying the proliferation of new material is the reason; the association with drugs really did in that genre. But I buy fewer and fewer records now, even for my own listening pleasure. The frustration and time consumption have finally done me in.
Hip-hop is also easier to make in a cheap home studio, but the majors have been behind that genre for a while now and still have a strong grip on what records get put out. Genres that had mild support from labels have been largely relegated to underground scenes.
I mention all this because I wonder if I'm seeing a parallel in publishing. It's becoming easier every day for people to "publish" their own novels, a lot of these writers with a minimal grasp on writing; just like a lot of people with minimal music skills can now produce a lot of records. And no, I'm not saying my writing is any better than the P.O.D. stuff. I'm still unpublished so who am I to say my writing is better? That's why I'm willing to go the agent-publisher route to make sure my material is at least readable beyond the first chapter before it gets published. So far, it's not.
As more people ignore the brick-and-mortars, and opt for buying books on the internet, a place where P.O.D.'s have a fighting chance, will certain genres become inundated with less than stellar titles to choose from? If so, how long before the avid reader becomes tired of sifting for hours for the book they want? The easy answer is, they'll just return to the brick-and-mortars. But the trend seems to be leaning towards the internet. And you may think you'd never give up looking for that next great fantasy or romance or thriller. But I thought I'd never get sick of looking for that next great techno record. And you may think, well techno was a dying genre, so the premise in the comparison is flawed. That's fine, but I was a fan, and still am a fan, of really good techno. The proliferation of material affected the fan base, is what I'm saying. Techno isn't half as popular as it was just five years ago, but there's twice as much techno music for sale. Doesn't make sense, but that's how it went.
So will a proliferation of fantasy or romance or thrillers by P.O.D. or other self-publishing means make it so frustrating for fans to find a good book that they buy less often in those genres?
Fine. As another thread mentioned, these companies are perfect for those personal books people want in print for geneologies or other family-related materials. But of course, a lot of writers tired of waiting on agents and publishers will go the route of P.O.D. That's their prerogative and I'm not knocking them.
But a funny thing happened in my profession, DJing, and I'm wondering if it will occur in publishing. Since the late eighties I've purchased techno records and CDs (and in all the sub-genres of techno, but that's the topic of a different thread) to play at the clubs I worked. My first five years or so I purchased songs or remixes made from a relatively small number of producers that record studios trusted, or from independent labels that knew the genre and the business enough to put out high-quality stuff. There was plenty of good material to select from both the conglomerates and independents. But since then, making music has become a lot easier, and a lot cheaper. You don't need a million-dollar studio anymore. You can professionally produce a band in a home studio with gear costing under ten grand. And for under a thousand dollars, you can buy enough software to make some descent-sounding music on your PC that would be tough to distinguish from the big studio-produced songs (for genres like techno and hip-hop). The result is that there's a hundred times more people producing their own music.
That's important because it gives more artists the chance to be heard and gives consumers more choice. Great, right? Well, the side effect is that along with having more good material to choose from, you have oodles of really bad stuff to sift through. In the late 80s, I'd say I bought maybe one out of every four or five tracks I'd listen to in a record store. By the early 90s, I'd buy maybe one out of eight, and I went from spending a couple hours in a record store to an entire afternoon. By the late 90s, when a lot of on-line record-buying sites popped up, the explosion of home-made music erupted. I'd spend hours on-line listening to material, a lot of it that was just okay but not quite up to par. A lot of it just outright awful. And there were fewer and fewer records that really excited me. By then, I'd choose just one out of every twelve records or so that I'd listen to. And today? I dread shopping for new music. I love finding that nugget I've been waiting for, but it takes so much longer. So now I search less often and buy fewer records. My DJ'ing friends have noted the same trend with the same frustration.
It's exciting to have more options to choose from. But it takes forever to find what you want. Techno has been on a big decline the last few years, and is almost non-existant in some areas and I'm not saying the proliferation of new material is the reason; the association with drugs really did in that genre. But I buy fewer and fewer records now, even for my own listening pleasure. The frustration and time consumption have finally done me in.
Hip-hop is also easier to make in a cheap home studio, but the majors have been behind that genre for a while now and still have a strong grip on what records get put out. Genres that had mild support from labels have been largely relegated to underground scenes.
I mention all this because I wonder if I'm seeing a parallel in publishing. It's becoming easier every day for people to "publish" their own novels, a lot of these writers with a minimal grasp on writing; just like a lot of people with minimal music skills can now produce a lot of records. And no, I'm not saying my writing is any better than the P.O.D. stuff. I'm still unpublished so who am I to say my writing is better? That's why I'm willing to go the agent-publisher route to make sure my material is at least readable beyond the first chapter before it gets published. So far, it's not.
As more people ignore the brick-and-mortars, and opt for buying books on the internet, a place where P.O.D.'s have a fighting chance, will certain genres become inundated with less than stellar titles to choose from? If so, how long before the avid reader becomes tired of sifting for hours for the book they want? The easy answer is, they'll just return to the brick-and-mortars. But the trend seems to be leaning towards the internet. And you may think you'd never give up looking for that next great fantasy or romance or thriller. But I thought I'd never get sick of looking for that next great techno record. And you may think, well techno was a dying genre, so the premise in the comparison is flawed. That's fine, but I was a fan, and still am a fan, of really good techno. The proliferation of material affected the fan base, is what I'm saying. Techno isn't half as popular as it was just five years ago, but there's twice as much techno music for sale. Doesn't make sense, but that's how it went.
So will a proliferation of fantasy or romance or thrillers by P.O.D. or other self-publishing means make it so frustrating for fans to find a good book that they buy less often in those genres?