Bertelsmann (the owner of Random House) is a for-profit corporation just like Palantir (a defense contractor), but the employees of Random House don’t need to be paid as much as the employees at Palantir, because Random House is perceived (by its employees) as fundamentally good
No? The employees of Random House don't need to be paid as much because the supply of qualified candidates for those roles greatly exceeds the demand. There are lots of causes of that imbalance and most of them have nothing to do with the perceived righteousness of publishing. It's also hard to get a job in the abusive video game development industry!
delichon 1 hours ago [-]
I hope The Martian becomes the template of a new publishing world. Andy Weir couldn't get any publisher's attention until he self published and achieved 35,000 sales in three months without their help. He succeeded by word of mouth and not publisher's marketing.
Almost all of the fiction I read comes by personal recommendations. Including from social media like Hacker News. I haven't stood in a bookstore browsing shelves and reading blurbs in many years but I read more than ever.
A publisher provides marketing, editing and distribution. Literary marketing is becoming better in the peer-to-peer form than the old business-to-consumer form. Distribution has become unbundled via self-publishing. Editing is no less important than ever, but it would be so much better if the value from such an individual art can be captured by those talented individuals rather than by corporate.
Long live literature, but may Big Publishing fade away into obsolescence.
legitster 2 hours ago [-]
This kind of reminds me of the book Get Shorty and the subsequent movie. About a mafia loan shark moving to hollywood and becoming a producer.
Elmore Leonard was very familiar with movie producers by that point in his career, and clearly saw a a funny similarly between what a mob does and how Hollywood operates.
At the same time, the book is almost a tender mark of appreciation towards the role a producer plays. It's one of the few stories that spotlights what a producer actually does and shows it's importance in greasing the wheels enough to actually make a movie.
paleotrope 2 hours ago [-]
That was worth the read. I did get a bit lost when the writer was talking about the different areas, prestige fiction, commercial fiction, nonprofit fiction.
tclancy 4 hours ago [-]
That was a fantastic read, thanks for the link!
christkv 4 hours ago [-]
Most books are loss leaders for publishing houses very few are profitable and even fewer are massively profitable. They keep publishing books that barely anybody reads because they have to have a diverse catalog.
BigTTYGothGF 2 hours ago [-]
> they have to have a diverse catalog.
They have to have a diverse catalog because they don't know in advance which books will be the big sellers.
bombcar 2 hours ago [-]
Tolkien and Rowling probably combine to be the majority of British publishing revenues ...
conception 4 minutes ago [-]
Dav Pilkey is basically western comic books right now. One of his books outsells all traditional publishers - Marvel, DC, IDW, etc.
everdrive 17 minutes ago [-]
>because they have to have a diverse catalog.
Why must they have a diverse catalog?
didgetmaster 48 minutes ago [-]
It mirrors the venture capital business. Invest in 100 projects. Know that 90 of them will likely fail, 7 or 8 will break even, and just 2 or 3 will succeed. Hope that the successful ones are big enough to cover all the losses of the others plus some.
mistrial9 45 minutes ago [-]
no - capital intensive business has very different patterns than popular media business. The visibility of the VCs and the visibility of publishing houses has some small overlap. Day-to-day and implementation details, timelines for success.. audience, partners.. so many things are starkly different IMHO
bombcar 2 hours ago [-]
It's the shotgun approach. Lots and lots of attempts and ride the successes as far as they can.
The_Goonies1985 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
bryanrasmussen 4 hours ago [-]
> I am giving a huge corporation a product to sell, but I am doing it for a fraction of what it cost me to produce that product.
well, relatively huge by the article's own admission.
on edit: changed but to by
Rendered at 15:45:45 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
No? The employees of Random House don't need to be paid as much because the supply of qualified candidates for those roles greatly exceeds the demand. There are lots of causes of that imbalance and most of them have nothing to do with the perceived righteousness of publishing. It's also hard to get a job in the abusive video game development industry!
Almost all of the fiction I read comes by personal recommendations. Including from social media like Hacker News. I haven't stood in a bookstore browsing shelves and reading blurbs in many years but I read more than ever.
A publisher provides marketing, editing and distribution. Literary marketing is becoming better in the peer-to-peer form than the old business-to-consumer form. Distribution has become unbundled via self-publishing. Editing is no less important than ever, but it would be so much better if the value from such an individual art can be captured by those talented individuals rather than by corporate.
Long live literature, but may Big Publishing fade away into obsolescence.
Elmore Leonard was very familiar with movie producers by that point in his career, and clearly saw a a funny similarly between what a mob does and how Hollywood operates.
At the same time, the book is almost a tender mark of appreciation towards the role a producer plays. It's one of the few stories that spotlights what a producer actually does and shows it's importance in greasing the wheels enough to actually make a movie.
They have to have a diverse catalog because they don't know in advance which books will be the big sellers.
Why must they have a diverse catalog?
well, relatively huge by the article's own admission.
on edit: changed but to by