Evenjos

Yeah. As a sci-fi author, I have strong opinions about this. Made an authortube video on the topic: https://youtu.be/THVpdcgTYrQ

But tl;dr: Gatekeepers in big/mainstream publishing have outsourced their slush-piles to underpaid interns, most of whom are young and ambitious women. They tend to like certain things. Also, big/mainstream publishing is chasing data trends, like all other big businesses, which leads to a staleness cycle where they only publish what worked in the last two years. They're afraid to take financial gambles on unproven ideas or new IP.

The good sci-fi these days is mostly indie and mostly underground, IMO. You really have to dig for it. Personally, I find good stuff via Reddit r/powerprogression, but even there, you may have to dig to find gems that speak to you.

I joke that I'm a male author and reader, even though I'm female. The first book of my epic series (which is fully published) is Majority: Torth Book 1.

The who cares era is just a symptom of the unaccountability machinery of our era.

It's hard to care or be passionate when you are certain that anything you produce which is worthwhile or original will be crushed, lost in the ocean of slop.

...Or just ignore AI and use your human creativity to write an amazing story. Something that is NOT a stale echo of another story. Something that adds to a global conversation/debate or examines a concept/premise a fresh new light, rather that parroting ideas that have already been expressed ad nauseam.

And if you can't think of anything new? Maybe the creative fields aren't for you. The world doesn't need more writers. There are much easier ways to earn a living.

I have a 6 book contract with Podium, my debut was in the top 100 books of 2023 by Kirkus, and I am nowhere near quitting my day job.

I've paid attention to the publishing industry for years. Like all of the arts, it's oversaturated and there's a lot of churn.

IMO, writers who earn a full-time living as authors fall into three basic categories. They either a) established themselves as blockbuster bestsellers with the Big Five before Amazon democratized the marketplace, circa 2010 and earlier, b) they established themselves as blockbuster bestsellers as early adopters of the Amazon Kindle marketplace, circa 2011 to 2016, or c) they own an advertising agency, are married to someone who owns an advertising agency, they are slick marketing gurus, or they are major social media influencers.

There are exceptions. I see interesting innovations in the web serial space, where I play around. I sell advance chapters on Patreon. Some authors do earn a full-time living that way.

But in general, yes, it is very tough to be a professional author or an artist or a musician or an indie game developer these days. Everyone wants to be one.

I also see cynical authors and artists using AI to 100x their content production so they can nickel and dime their way into top seller spots. The algorithms boost anyone whose works consistently sell and bury everyone else.

I love rational fiction. Yes to Methods of Rationality, Mother of Learning, and also Paranoid Mage and a few others, including Majority by Abby Goldsmith.

Yes.

Ha ha, that was pretty good.

100%. I see a lot of originality in web serials and fiction by indie authors. I've more or less stopped reading books that were curated by the Big Five publishing houses.

The cons of thinking in public: - Everyone judges you. - Everyone can snap to a potentially wrong assumption about you or your motives. - The conversation can shift to a meta discussion about you as a person, or some other factor, instead of the argument or proposal you were originally concerned enough to publicly post about.

Thinking in private allows greater freedom in some ways, although you do exchange power for that freedom. There is a lot of power in public opinion.

I explore this theme very in-depth in my web serial, which I just recently launched on RoyalRoad! Torth by AbbyBabble.

Hahaha! This one does!

Codex https://forums.codexwriters.com/ is very actively moderated. There are interesting quality discussions there.

There is Codex. https://forums.codexwriters.com/

It's for SFF writers, and it skews towards trad pub. There are (easy to meet) membership requirements: You need to have earned some money as an author, or have been published somewhere pro-ish.

I've been a member for many years. It's a useful community.

The indie author gold rush was basically 2012 through now. It's still in full swing. But much like the California Gold Rush, it's beyond a saturation point. There are all kinds of sharks in the water, selling seminars and promising riches.

Don't listen to idiots. But do listen to the people who sincerely tried and failed.

Few people want to talk about failure. But I've been watching the publishing industry for a long time, and it's not as simple as pressing the "Publish" button and watching sales roll in. Algorithms have changed the way things work. Bots promote works that are already popular or trending. It's harder than ever for newbies to get noticed.

Major studios are terrified of taking a risk on an unknown IP. That's why they keep snatching up IPs with established audiences. I can't wait until that attitude changes. There are plenty of small, unknown authors who wrote excellent series.

And then the studios are approaching each adaptation as a committee instead of as a visionary. It's writing-by-committee instead of writing as an individual.

I'm in a community like this, which is also very heavily moderated.

It still has toxic elements because the people who run the platform think a certain way.

The incentives in healthcare aren't prioritizing healthcare. It's a systemwide problem.

I'm active in many writing communities. There is a culture, among writers, to "Never respond to reviews." Those who dare break that taboo are asking for trouble, in the form of twitter mobs and online bullying.

Writing is a cut-throat, competitive industry. All of the arts are, once you get beyond hobbyist level and into the realm of professionals.

I would not be shocked if a lot of that abuse came from other writers.

I'm in the writing industry, and I definitely see this with young writers. He's absolutely correct.

Did scientists ever figure out how sauropods ate enough to support their mass, with their tiny mouths?

100%.

This is the case in online serials, and books, as well.

There is also an emotional investment factor that comes with long serials, as opposed to single seasons. The more time you put into something--even just in terms of watching it, or reading it--the more emotionally invested you become.

In other words, there is an addiction factor. The addiction factor does not kick in until at least a season 2 or 3.

Exactly. What happened in the 1990s was a major consolidation of all retailers, including bookstores.

This created limited shelf space, which, in turn, put pressure on publishers to consolidate their authors into a few mega best-sellers, whom they then were completely reliant on. One Stephen King or James Patterson was enough to pay for 9 underperforming titles.

Major publishers also consolidated, from many into the so-called Big Six, which then became the Big Five. Five major publishers own the whole industry. Most publishers you've heard of are an imprint of one of those, or else it's a small press with very limited distribution.

All that consolidation has an effect. It narrows the gates, and gives rise to an industry that grows reliant on gatekeepers.

Why did the great consolidations happen? Why is everything trending towards a multi-national mega-conglomerate? I think I know, but that's a story for another day.

Lulu is ancient, and has been outcompeted by Amazon and other platforms. Wattpad has something like 65 million readers.

If the current companies are screwing up so badly, who are the innovators that will go around those mistakes and out-compete them?

I mentioned this upthread, but in a nutshell: Amazon turned the book industry on its head by offering 70% royalties directly to indie authors, cutting out middlemen (i.e. traditional publishers and literary agencies). That happened in late 2009, and it unleashed a gold rush which is still in full swing. Traditional publishers still exist, and they still dominate the print industry (due to the huge expenses involved in print runs and print retail shelf space), but they have lost a lot of control over ebooks and audiobooks.

70% is more than artists get from art galleries, and it's more than musicians get from record labels. It's unheard of in the arts. And it was a very savvy move by Jeff Bezos. It changed the dynamics of that whole industry.

If Google/YouTube or some other major distributor of film (such as Netflix, or some new start-up) offers a large platform of viewers, plus that royalty rate for an incentive, then we are guaranteed to see a film Renaissance.

I hope it happens.

I think that socioeconomic forces being what they are, it is unlikely to happen any time soon. These days, awesome startups are likely to be bought by mega-conglomerates, and any visionary ideas they have will die beneath the weight of committee thinking.

It's not impossible. The problem is a lack of incentives.

Amazon offers 70% royalties to indie authors.

YouTube offers peanuts to indie film makers. Netflix offers nothing.

Film-making is more expensive than novel writing, and there is a higher barrier to entry. Few indie film-makers are going to stick with it, unpaid, for multiple years. If they can receive funding, then that whole paradigm will change.

Patreon made a few steps in that direction, but I think crowd-funding has limits.

If Google/YouTube were to do what Amazon did, and offer a huge royalty share of profits...? That would turn everything around.

This is one of those overly simplistic views that doesn't take the underlying laws and incentives into account.

Sure, it's bean counters. So then go a step further, and ask yourself: why are the bean counters afraid to take risks on fresh creative content? What market forces are driving them to bet solely on licensed shlock in the post-2000 world? What changed?

If the publishing industry is overwhelmed with a flood of writers--it very much is--well, please ask "why." Dig into the reasons behind the indie author gold rush.

There's a great in-depth recent history of the publishing industry here: https://www.wattpad.com/869503247-so-you-want-a-fandom-publi...

Quick and dirty summary:

Amazon opened its floodgates in 2009, when it offered 70% royalties. Traditional publishing gives authors somewhere around 5% royalties, when all is said and done. That is how the gold rush started.

As for publishers betting on tried and true best-sellers... that started earlier, when several laws in the 1980s caused a major consolidation of businesses, including publishers and booksellers. A law got changed, and Barnes & Noble became the arbiter of what got shelf space.

There is a lot to this history.

This is quite incredible. I'm a 3D artist with a ton of experience in 3dsmax, and I am really impressed by this.

This is a timely read for me. I just finished reading "Disrupted," by Dan Lyons, about corruption in the digital marketing industry.

I like common sense solutions. Unfortunately, most people don't.

Working at various tech companies, I've observed a major shift towards the fine art of bullshit. Employees constantly have to prove their worth and put a fresh spin on how valuable they are to the company.

Talent and merit and work ethic is falling by the wayside. The top salaries go to people who make themselves sound talented and worthy, while the shove the actual work down the line. I've seen projects outsourced on nine levels. Everyone wants their cut.

There's some research that the creation of paper bags, and those more permanent plastic bags, is just as harmful to the environment as plastic disposable bags.

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4460