Getting Down to Business

4 Comments

1. Therese Walsh on February 1, 2025 at 11:04 am

   Great roundup, Densie! So interesting about S&S and the future of blurbs. From Simon & Schuster publisher Sean Manning:

   “It takes a lot of time to produce great books, and trying to get blurbs is not a good use of anyone’s time. Instead, authors who are soliciting them could be writing their next book; agents could be trying to find new books; editors could be improving books through revisions; and the solicited authors could be reading books they actually want to read that will benefit their work—rather than reading books they feel they have to read as a courtesy to their editor, their agent, a writer friend or a former student. What’s worse, this kind of favor trading creates an incestuous and unmeritocratic literary ecosystem that often rewards connections over talent.”

   Okay. So, if publishing is moving away from blurb-seeking because it wastes time and rewards connections over talent, can we also talk about the pressure on authors to be on social media? SM also prioritizes networking over merit, except in an environment engineered for distraction, not creation. If blurbs are unmeritocratic and inefficient, why is social media — arguably an even greater drain on an author’s time — still industry standard?

   And I cannot believe that we’re living in a world that requires “Human Authored” on its book covers, yet here we are.

   Thank you, as always, for your work with this. We appreciate you!

   Reply
   • Densie Webb on February 1, 2025 at 11:40 am

     Thank you, Therese. It’s always enlightening (and sometimes disturbing) to pull it together!

     Reply
2. Michael Johnson on February 1, 2025 at 2:39 pm

   I always enjoy these roundups, Densie. Thanks for taking time (that you could probably use asking other writers for blurbs) to collect more news of the apocalypse. The one thing that we as writers can do that a machine can’t do is write nov— Oh wait.

   I occasionally ponder the idea that we at WU all are dedicated to an art form that even in English is at least a hundred years older than grand opera. While it’s true that opera is still around, it’s truly savored by the same twelve people that think baby squids stewed in their own ink is food. Novels, on the other hand, are being turned out–and published–in amazing numbers. By humans. Where is the need for stories written by machines? What is the point of the exercise? The main problem facing writers today is not finding a publisher, or reaching the public. Our problem is standing out from the (enormous) crowd. Thanks for inventing a technology that makes it more difficult, nerds.

   Are they trying to get rid of humans because we have expensive health plans? I mean, that’s what they’re doing at the grocery store. Oops. Sorry, I drifted straight into a rant. But seriously, writers: Why are they doing this?

   Reply
3. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt on February 1, 2025 at 2:49 pm

   I’m flabbergasted. Fraud of 44 MILLION from 800 authors works out to $55,000 on average per old author scammed. That’s a huge investment. Hard to believe that many people could be persuaded to pay that much for a dream – and not spend some of it on their own attorney.

   The ones I’ve heard of have been more in the several thousand dollar range.

   I guess if you want Hollywood…

   Thanks for some interesting reading, Densie. Unfortunately, the Romantasy copyright article is behind a paywall, and the available version is audio, which I can’t do – I was looking forward to deciding for myself if it was infringement (and learning about the genre simultaneously).

   Reply