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The way this would hurt the publishing industry is by taking away their cash cows. As I understand it, publishers are effectively funded by a handful of success
by karaterobot 5y ago
The way this would hurt the publishing industry is by taking away their cash cows. As I understand it, publishers are effectively funded by a handful of successful books, and bankable authors. This money lets them release books by many other authors, who are less successful. If the "big name" writers left traditional publishing, the whole model implodes: new writers, or niche writers, wouldn't have as many opportunities.
On the other hand, there are plenty of opportunities for those writers to be successful outside the traditional publishing industry. So, if every big name writer switched to crowdfunding (which is not by any means guaranteed) I don't think literature would necessarily suffer. The publishing industry would suffer, but I don't feel the need to protect their business model.
- runevault 5y agoA lot of the authors who matter most here (and there are ones way bigger then Brandon like King and Grisham) likely don't care about putting in all the work for a few more millions of dollars when they already make 7-8 figures per book. A LOT goes into arranging print runs, managing all the extra goodies he's adding as bonuses at the higher tiers, and so on. Writers who need extra stuff to make a name and convince people to notice them is one thing. When you already make insane amounts of money it becomes less worth it. Also I wonder if less nerdy/technical fan bases than SFF would be as inclined to even get involved with Kickstarter.