I agree that more should go to the author but following an author friend on Twitter going through the editing of his third novel, I've been amazed by how much e

I agree that more should go to the author but following an author friend on Twitter going through the editing of his third novel, I've been amazed by how much editing and fact checking is done by the publisher (or rather the editor on behalf of the publisher). They've pulled him up on everything from one character removing the wrong persons trousers (seriously), to commentary about when things were overwrought to picking him up on mentioning a TV show that hadn't screened at the time. And that's just a selection of the bits he mentioned, I'm fairly certain there's a shed load more that were less remarkable and amusing. Writing may be a solo pursuit but getting a book in a finished form and getting it to market takes more effort from more people than is apparent to most of us I think and that's all got to be paid for by someone. Obviously an author could contract directly with a copy editor but there are issues with that, from having to provide the money up front to the fact that once you the author are paying them they're less likely to give you honest feedback for fear they won't get work in the future. The current publishing model is, like most businesses, flabby, but we need to be careful not to assume that there's no value there.