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Out With the Old

Rod Walker had a good writeup regarding the upcoming demise of traditional publishers and the continued irrelevance of the lone major bookstore still standing, Barnes & Noble.

The problem that the big publishers and Barnes & Noble face is twofold.
1.) They can’t change. The amount of change required for them to survive in the new world is too painful to contemplate, so they’re not going to do it.
2.) They’re obsolete. The ebook has replaced the mass market paperback. Tradpub made most of its money off hardcovers, but now people only buy hardcovers of authors they really, really like, usually after they’ve read the author’s ebooks.
Because of that, the future of publishing will probably look like a lot of indie authors and a lot of smaller, more agile publishers like Castalia House.So, if you’re a writer just starting out, Rod Walker thinks you should self-publish instead of attempting to go with a traditional publisher.

From my perspective as a voracious reader (who is still taking very hesitant baby steps into the world of indie publishing), this observation rings very true. B&N simply cannot compete well in today's world of Amazon, e-readers both physical and app based, and the burgeoning indie publishing revolution.

I have lived within walking distance of several B&N stores over the past couple years and moves, and I rarely bought anything from them, outside of periodically raiding their discount area. Their prices are simply way too high for one, plus the fact that the science fiction section is so overrun with big name authors and SJW crap (sometimes one and the same) that there is little chance of finding something new to read.

The homogeneity of every B&N, no matter where it is placed, ensures that I see these same sad tableaux no matter which one of their stores I am at.

I have found far more to read and enjoy on the indie side of things, where authors like Peter Grant, Vox Day, Jonathan Moeller,  Glynn Stewart, etc have produced works that put story first and message second, and not only that, actually produce at a reasonable rate(with the exception of Vox R R Day, but he does have the excuse of being very busy running Castalia/trolling his way through the interwebz). You will notice by the way, that all of these authors have a wide variety of politics, some of which agree with and some of which I find repugnant. This does not change the quality of their work, nor its enjoyment to me. Story before message always wins out over snobby literati message dreck. 

Traditional publishing ensures that there is a lengthy gap between books in a series, whereas an indie author is under so such restraint. Not everybody can be a million plus words a year machine like Moeller is, but most indie authors put out a considerably higher output than their traditional published counterparts do. Without suffering from a quality drop I might add.

This has of course, led to some sniveling and whining from the "intellectuals" who prefer to produce one carefully crafted message (about warrior lesbians fighting to save the polar bears from evil fundamentalists) every ten years, which sells ten whole copies but gets favorably reviewed by the NYT. A recent example of this was memorably fisked by Larry Correia, if you haven't read it yet, you need to get over there and read it right now.

 I hope to someday get published by Castalia, but that day is not going to happen without a lot of work, some of which I have already put in and much of which is still before me. But my learning will happen a lot faster than it would, were I trying to futilely bang on the doors of the New York publishing houses, wasting valuable time and energy instead of focusing on learning my craft.

Indie publishing is giving me that opportunity, and I couldn't be more excited about the future!

Speaking of which, my first tentative foray into indie publishing is now available at Kobo! It's my attempt to put big guns and the American revolution into space, and for all its flaws, I'm very happy with how it turned out and I learned a lot from writing it. Hope you enjoy!

Jonathan
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