I'm from a very small country in Europe and this comment is being written hours after meeting with a publisher. Funny how KZread algorithm works! Went in for a conversation as an aspiring author with a finished and polished 105 000 words book fully willing to take nothing as an advance and a symbolic 1 percent of royalties after/if the book sales exceed expenses. He, a very experienced ceo, told me that the only way new authors are being published these days (in my country) is by getting a massive subsidy from the ministry of culture or finding a corporate/private sponsor to finance all the parts of publishing a novel. After that he politely asked to read my novel and - if he deems it well written and interesting - went on to suggest I should come with a sponsor of some sorts because he just couldn't in any way afford it. This was a genuine live conversation that I almost didn't believe happened even after I received a very similar e-mail from an equally polite book-loving publisher (English is not my first language so here I would like to point out that I use no sarcasm when saying they were all polite, well meaning and genuine, kind people) telling me that he barely earns money on the big names such as Stephen Fry and Frank Herbert's Dune... If it's bad in America you can only imagine all the hoops one needs to jump through in other countries. I'm not saying that getting traditionally published is anyone's right but ever since I started querying a while back I was candidly told that the quality of prose and things like plot, characters, themes etc. are important of course but they take a back seat /way back/ to market projections. And a lot of publishers are not willing to gamble on spending anything on someone unproven and unknown. It's fine, I blame no one since it's not my place to assign blame but to write. And maybe I write only for my wife and myself. It's grim but I won't give up :)

@meursault7030

19 күн бұрын

What country are you referring to? I don't know why you worry about your English being insufficient, you speak it better than most English people I know, as an English person.

@JosipK93lk

18 күн бұрын

@@meursault7030 That would be Croatia. And thanks, it's nice to hear that I'm embarrassing neither myself nor the language :).

As a SELF publisher 300,000 copies sold is a HUGE success and a great incentive to publish at least every year to two years. AND it allows me to write what I want and not just what is trending or even socially acceptable.

Sometimes it feels like the publishing industry is doing the same thing Netflix and other big corporations are falling into, where the prioritization of maximizing profits is shooting themselves in the foot. "I know everyone loved that show but we're going to cancel the second season" alternatively "lets keep pushing celerity memoirs or hyped up comp titles until everyone is sick of them". I don't think traditional publishing is going to die outright, but the power certainly needs to shift to smaller, more insightful hands. Maybe then I'll look into pitching something, but until then, having more control seems most appealing. Anyway, don't let the industry/stats/rumors get you down! Just make what you love :)

My second novel has recently been published through self-publishing. The reason for choosing this route was to share my story with readers. While making a profit would be great, the chances are slim. My passion for writing drives me and I can't envision doing anything else.

Im a self published author on Amazon (kindle kdp). I have published 2 books, and anyone who is already an independent author without a huge celebrity-like social following will tell you-- its a struggle. I wouldn't say publishing is dying, but rather converting. Celebrities and big names with an already established fan base and audience are literally their own brand. Their work will sell itself because of name recognition, without regards to the quality of the manuscript. Self publishing is the future because any celeb can be a "best selling author" just by stamping their name on a random manuscript. This eliminates the need for a traditional publisher and also marketing. This hurts potential sales from the small-time unknown author who may have a great manuscript. I would say that if traditional publishing houses want to stay relevant, they would need to start taking chances on new upcoming authors who have great manuscripts. Thats the only way publishing houses will be able to compete with celebrities who can independently publish rubbish and get a quick cash grab. They have to be willing to tap into the true talents that are out there, and be willing to endure the delayed gratification of a work being successful later-- than sooner.

I own more than 7,000 books, actual books, so I must be No One.

@etepeteseat7424

19 күн бұрын

Odysseus, is that you? 🤔😅

@davidwilson410

19 күн бұрын

@@etepeteseat7424 Yes!!

I cannot imagine a world without new books, especially the ones you hold in your hands. And, yes, spinning data for the sake of pleading their case is obvious as this is the norm

I've been hearing this "people/kids don't read anymore" and "people don't buy books anymore" for almost all my life. My country had a publishing boom during that, too, and we have way more books released now than 30 years ago but in smaller batches But tbh now it may actually be true that people don't buy books, who has the money? My grandpa ordered "2 meters of green books" as cheap decorations until grandma fills the bookshelf with her own stuff. My mom payed buttons and peanuts for a book subscription for a book a month for 5 years. And now if I want a new paperback book it's 3-10 hours of minimal wage here. Last year I wanted to treat myself to a freshly released e-book, the price of a hardback and at any time they can revoke your access because you only pay to borrow it. *And there are still more books published and sold than when I was a child* despite all the available free sources from libraries to sailing the seven seas, despite the second hand market not counting towards most statistics And we have so many small authors now. Little co-ops taking care of editing and all that for each other and aiding new authors. They're sitting by their little tables at book events, so excited to chat about what they have going on, giving out tips and guide zines like candy, I love it

I live in Peru, today I went to a book fair, I know culturally we are poor but is strange to notice what that author says is pretty accurate for us: I only saw another re-editions of classics (Poe, Dante, etcetera), Stephen King in modern authors, encyclopedias and books for children and students. There are not many new authors, in part because we are culturally a colony of the U.S., and there is this corporate push there politically that isn't attractive here, so most of what is written now is just left there unsold. Edit: btw, I forgot. My two last purchases in books were William Morrow & Co editions of the Lord of the Rings in one volume and The Silmarillion. Even that the article somehow fit my (personal) reality.

People do buy books, paper and ebooks and audiobooks, if they can find a book they like. However, the shop shelves and the eshops are full of horrible products that have no merit. There is no talent, just a desire to make quick money. If you browse 20-25 pages of an eshop or you go to 4-5 bookshops and you only find garbage products copied from generic blogs, old websites or stolen from other writers or made into low-quality fan-fiction with poor results, you obviously get bored and don't buy anything. If the sellers would get rid of 80% of their listings, people will start buying books again. Nowadays, everything is a copy of everything else, with a different location and names or, for non-fiction, with a different logo. Obviously people won't fall for it. It's just like the 1500 first results on your youtube homepage: 98% irrelevant, sprinkled with ads.

@somethingclever8916

24 күн бұрын

I think book stores are in trouble. I used to love going to book stores but Amazon knows what I read and is pretty good at recommendation. And that recommendation made browsing pointless

@dianaalmeida6790

19 күн бұрын

@@somethingclever8916 I agree. I find myself loosing more time checking the Amazon recommendations then perusing the fluff the put now in book stores.

@strangedays871

14 күн бұрын

And AI is about to make it a whole lot worse.

I'm in the process of querying agents just beginning this month. It's taken me three years from rough draft, to critiquing writer's circles and to the final revision of a 90,200 word ya novel. I can wait another few months to see if agents answer me before I look at self publishing. Here is the truth of the matter, the new agent of the day are these author tubers. If you can get Jenna Moreci or Daniel Greene talking about your upcoming novel then you've directly been pitched to the readers out there already. It's very seductive to want to bypass an agency and an editor at a major publishing house, but there is also a danger there of true defeat when after a year you've seen little to no movement of your book and there's no one there to talk you through it. I think print is about to make a big comeback especially with younger readers. The bookshelf is still being made, now it's the author's duty to see that it is filled.

Books are where the majority of my “fun money” goes. I’m definitely buying books physically, audiobooks, and e-books.

Publishing has been about to collapse for decades. Best Selling Author Brandon Sanderson has talked about this multiple times and it keeps going on. So nothing new. Good video.

Print on demand publishing has to be the future: publishing thousands of copies when you have no idea what will sell must be so inefficient. I think the social side of reading must be encouraged more too. The biggest threats are from the attention-destroying easy entertainment from smartphones etc, and economic pressures on disposable income. I think both of these will be overcome.

@justonefyx

22 күн бұрын

Print on demand has very horrible typesetting and AI art on the cover. I never buy them unless there's no where else to buy a copy.

My friend told me no one buys books anymore while we were waiting in line to check out at barnes and noble. I pointed behind me where there were about 8 people still waiting in line, lol

I am an English literature major, who eventually went on to become a school psychologist with a very busy practice servicing over 20 schools in the U.K. Getting gradually closer to retirement age now. As someone who assesses children every day across a wide ranging geographic area, I tell you books are a dying medium. I would estimate that 90% of the children I assess do not read books. They consume social media, Netflix etc instead. It’s very sad. I reckon within 40 years, book stores won’t exist, except in big cities.

As an aspiring author myself, it does look like self-publishing will be my best bet for getting my work out there. While I would love to make a living off it, I know that there's only so much of the pie to go around. Just being able to be published and have something I could possibly batch print for friends or interested individuals would be cool.

Thank you for doing this video, sharing both sides of the argument about the health of the book industry. Yes, statistics can be skewed to paint a certain picture, but I also believe that there’s a bit of “creative accounting” that is common in the industry - in fact throughout the entertainment industry, such as films and music - to make said industry look less profitable, partly as a way to create leverage in the industry’s favor. You hear similar things in the film industry - how this “blockbuster” movie cost x amount to make, but only raked in < x amount from ticket sales. Yet this is the same industry that pays out a lot of money to execs, stars, and marketing & distribution. How are you making money if everything looks to be in the red? Something isn’t adding up.

I live in NYC. I know people in Publishing. People in Publishing have been saying it's dying since Amazon came in. And if you look into the industry, it doesn't look good. They no longer employ the editors or proofreaders they once did. There are layoff, etc. The second article is too hopeful. Print media has been in a rough place since the advent of digital media. Books are print media. If book publishing as an industry relies on celebs then they are soon to be very, very hurt. We have a lot of small influencers, but few stars. Each year, social media makes it harder and harder for people to become the kind of famous that sells films and TV shows OR so many books. In other words, that revenue stream is drying up. The good news is that going viral in BookTok / Book Tube can open doors for new writers.

Extremely informative. Thanks for sharing this information. I grew up around books. My grandparents owned a bookstore, I met or have known some of the biggest authors of all time, and I'm a writer as well. I also spent decades working at bookstores, from my grandparents' shop to other independents before working at Barnes and Noble for thirteen years. In all that time I've learned relatively little about the workings of the publishing industry. But I did learn a lot about the reading public and the differences between a big corporate chain and mom and pop bookshops and how different they are in operation.

You did amazing tackling this. My guess is that one of these journalists was way too pessimistic and one of these journalists was at least a little too optimistic.

@OnefortheBooks

25 күн бұрын

Thank you!

I'm an aspiring author currently working on two manuscripts. Yesterday, I heard some of the statistics mentioned in the first article and felt absolutely crushed. But hearing about the rebuttal article, and how it added some much needed context to those statistics, makes me feel better. It gives me hope. It also reaffirms that there are people in the world who care about the same things that I do. People who share my dream of seeing a story they’re passionate about telling on a bookstore or library bookshelf one day. Keep writing @oneforthebooks and never give up. Thanks for this video and sharing your perspective on the matter. Write on!

Great video! Thank you so much for reviewing both articles. I wouldn't have known there was a rebuttal.

Most of what I buy is from the 1870’s to the 1960’s although thanks to socio-political changes in the last 15 years I am being forced into fairly new books to an extent. I almost completely switched to non-fiction years ago. The funny thing is that the capability to discover, search for, find, and buy old books is my favorite thing about new technology.

I know, it's a pretty depressing article. Given that it was based on a desperate attempt to defeat an anti-trust injunction, it surely painted the darkest picture possible, although, since it was a legal proceeding, there had to be at least some degree of truth in the assertions. The gloomy forecast does seem to implicitly ignore many genres and formats. It's almost certainly not factoring in e-books, audiobooks, and other more modern formats. Probably not even paperbacks or anthologies. So, Penguin was probably focusing on hardcover, paper novels because it's the section of their business which has been suffering most. People haven't gotten tired of stories -- in fact, they're likely in more demand than ever -- it's just that there are now many more ways to consume the work of an author other than just hardbacks.

Very good research. Thank you for your work! WE should take into consideration the significant decline in reader's habits: people read less nowadays.🙁

I’m in a similar situation. My manuscript is “complete” (ya know-needs a professionals touch) but I’m currently pitching agents setting an expectation and preparing to self publish after working through editors on a deadline. The deadline allows me time to work on the follow on novel, which will improve my first one, but I’m also giving myself the same chance these agents will. I think the indie author boom is just getting started. And the more research I do(such as finding this video) it makes me lean more towards proving my concept on my own, and if it leads to a trad pub deal great, but if not it doesn’t make a difference. The stories need to be told… they pour from us. So whether an agent snags it or you put it out yourself it will be out there. Good luck! I share your concerns. I’m sure you’ve found him but Steven Pressfield has a bunch of non fiction books (including the war of art) and they are super helpful for perspective.

@OnefortheBooks

28 күн бұрын

I hadn't heard of Steven Pressfield! Thanks for the recommendation! 😊 And totally agree with you. Best of luck with your publishing process!

@Chance.Dillon

28 күн бұрын

@@OnefortheBooks yeah war of art is an all time favorite. He’s got others like “artists journey” “Put your ass where your heart wants to be” Quick coffee break reads that provide interesting insight from a relatively successful author in fiction. Excited to follow along and hear more about your book when the time comes

I read a lot. About 200 books per year. Maybe 40% were published in the last 5 or 6 years. I’m just not interested in contemporary themes and trends in publishing. Celebrities have no appeal what so ever. I’m lukewarm on fantasy. Nope to romance. But this is what publishers push. I admit to being an outlier in my tastes. But do publishers actually publish the books readers want?

@strangedays871

14 күн бұрын

Yeah, I'm the same, I could care less about fantasy and romance novels. I don't think publishers really know what they are doing most of the time. They are guessing for the most part.

I think we as authors need to research and see what best works for us as individuals :) We also need to accept that we’re in 2024 now. We might need to take advertising to social media like Instagram and TikTok. And if the numbers prove that self publish is better then so be it. Amazon is taking things by storm, we either right against the wind or ride the current /:

"No one buys books". Then why am I, as a fellow bookworm, seeing so many book shopping and library haul videos on my Recommended feed? People are definitely still borrowing and buying books to read. And not just physical copies either. While publishing books may be a challenge, it's definitely not dying out. Books are literally being pushed out every year as well as read. So, no. Neither are going away anytime soon. HOWEVER - I will say, I'd love to see it surpass social media use. As reading is so much better for us than spending so much time on our phones. And there are lots of videos in regards to people leaving social media and replacing their screen time with reading time. So all hope is not lost

The thing I'm most concerned about with conventional publishing is the emergence and increasing use of sensitivity reader/editors. I'm in the process of submitting, albeit rather slowly as I'm really not in any hurry to get an agent. I have two of a three book initial series in my story universe finished, and I'm thinking of pausing to write a different book before continuing, so rushing is not a thing. I'm also aware making money is unlikely to occur, but that's not why I write anyway. Advances have been dropping for a long time, but I'd consider a publishing deal without one.

@erencanaslan7989

18 күн бұрын

the whole sensitivity readers and editors is an incredibly dumb idea. people went too soft these days, lol.

So... Been down this path a bit myself. I write. I have a finished novel and a follow up 7 books with the same character... wait... 8 cause I wrote in-universe fan fiction as well but that is novellea length. ANYWAY - I want to live the dream as an author and want to have my stories on the shelve. So I have gone the path of throwing my self at the mercy of the publishers and been politely knocked back. So sat down and asked myself WHY I wanted to be published and came up with the answer that I wanted to share my stories. Being insanely rich would also be nice, but so would a lot of things. So, if I accept that I are never going to make a living wage off my work but just want to have my books out there then I should self publish and run my mini publishing house as an expensive hobby. The price to get into self publishing isn't THAT scary. If was to get into dirt biking I would need to buy a dirt bike, so again, expensive hobby theory. I have also spoken to some friends who have been published and none of them still believe that traditional publishing is the best/only way to go. One friend had her moderately successful series cut after book 2 because the publisher saw diminishing returns and didn't want to commit to her third book in the series. Another pointed out that the publishing houses now expect you to do a lot of the publicity yourself and don't offer the support they used to. So on that theory if you are going to have to publicity yourself you may as well publish yourself as well. Which led me to the grand plan of self publishing a few years back. Then I had a string of RL issues which... distracted me somewhat, but I have set a deadline objective for later this year and will totally procrastinate at every single opportunity to ensure I screw this up :P But yeah, I think the question any writer with a unpublished novel sitting on their HD has to ask is WHY do you want to be published? If your answer is 'Insanely Rich' then... well... chase your dream and don't let me distract you, but also good luck you will need it. If your objective is just to have your work 'out there' and anything else is a bonus then I say run it as an expensive hobby and go self publishing.

I just finished a 100,000 word YA fantasy that I intend to self publish. I'm in the time consuming place of getting it professionally edited. Its been an expensive hobby. Honestly, its clear to me that the "big-5" are in a desperate downward spiral and should be avoided by small authors. They didn't see (or refused to acknowledge) the freight train of change coming when they had a chance to really do something about it. They're going down the exact same path Polaroid did after the release of digital cameras. But, I believe, the freight train of change, didn't kill the hunger for good stories. It just changed how these get distributed. In a big way, I think this is a huge win for authors. Because it takes away the emperor's thumb to declare yea or nay over our books. And let's face it, if you made a break out hit today, the big-5, in their desperation, would gobble up the profits just to stay afloat. So, if your writing is financially motivated, you likely aren't going to see much anyway. What about the prestige of being picked up by the big-5? The way I see it, its a shell of a once great system. They can take their celebrity and politicians book deal money and stay alive for a few more years. Good luck! Admittedly, I'm annoyed that I'm spending so much money to prepare my manuscript. But as the saying goes. If you don't try, there's a 100% chance you will fail. I read a statistic that only 6 out of a 1000 authors make it to the publish. I'm already statistically doing pretty good. If people like my story and it does well, I'll be thrilled. If they don't. Well, my grandchildren will have a physical copy of the book their grandfather wrote. I suppose that's something. btw. My plan is to publish as paperback, ebook, and make an audio book. I figure, cover the bases.

@erencanaslan7989

18 күн бұрын

Why pour so much money into it though? And why the paperback and then an "audiobook"??? That's way too costly. If I were to self publish, I would just do ebook and no editors whatsoever (and English is my second language, lol)

@klv3160

18 күн бұрын

@@erencanaslan7989 You brought up two points. English is my first language and I've written for years. I self-edited my book countless times. I was certain there would be no mistakes. Wrong. After going through editing with a professional editor, there were over 500 mistakes. Many were small (grammatical errors). Some were more serious (dropped words). And some were fatal (entirely missed lines of thought and logical errors). So I wouldn't recommend anyone attempt to publish without a second, professional editor. As far as just publishing a ebook. As a debut novel, I have no fan base. I believe that by covering my bases of having the three formats (Print, eBook, and Audio) there's no excluded customers. I will admit it is optimistic to take the full plunge in. But on the remote chance that my story does have market appeal, the cost should repay itself back. That's the theory. Let's face it, if it can't pay back just the final production cost (not even counting the cost of the time spent writing the novel), the whole thing was a waste from a financial perspective. To me, its worth more than just the money.

I don't think publishing is dead. There are publishing companies are still around like Orbit and Tor. A lot of people are buying indie books and original books, but they want to be writers. They can't get a publisher to publish their books, but so they became self-publisher through the apps. I am a writer, too, I do that, too.

When a premium edition of a Fantasy Books becomes highest grossing kickstarted of all time, it makes you wonder where they get these ideas of doom and gloom. It sounds like fear mongering to me.

@keithparker1346

25 күн бұрын

Nerds and their money are soon parted

@erencanaslan7989

18 күн бұрын

You have a funny brain. Brando sando is on a level of his own. and that particular example is still self publishing lol.

I'm from a very small country in Europe with a native language that is not spoken anywhere else and the article depicts very well the publishing reality here. For the USA it surprises me but for the country I live is spot on.

Excellent. Thank you.

I used to do a writers club in 2014 and was advise to never publish with amazon, they don't understand the book industry, dose a publisher or agent consider when I query a book I've written. It seems like unless you have contract with a publisher, you have to weed though endless opinions of what to try and not to try. Another author said on a news show I watch that they keep moving the goal post on what will get you published, then find out it only applies to certain established authors and others are on their own to figure it out.

Come to the Indie Side. We have cookies.... But seriously. Choosing your best path forward with intentionality is the wisest decision you can make. Trad and Indie both have their own pros and cons. But they also have a TON of overlap. Consider what benefits you think you're getting from the choice, and then go ask authors in the "opposition" to see if they find that their choice did or didn't benefit that. (Example: Author Signings. Trad authors STILL have to bring their own books to a signing sometimes. Another: Editing. Yes, Trad pays for your editor, but many, many times, a change in editor can leave a book "orphaned" or even barely edited. Indie, we pay our editors, and have control of the quality of edit.) If you even want to chat with authors who have chosen Indie, there is a whole community of experienced authors who love hopping on to a call, Live or not!

@OnefortheBooks

26 күн бұрын

Thanks for the encouragement! Indie definitely wins the having-control-over-your-story pro. And I appreciate the offer to chat. Maybe when I get closer to being ready for publishing I will reach out! ☺

@erencanaslan7989

18 күн бұрын

where is this community and how can I join?!!! I started giving serious thought to self pub now.

This was very enlightening. I didn’t know about this.

I thought I should mention one thing that no one seems to have mentioned. If the book industry is dying then surely your company batons down the hatches, and cuts back on expenditures. And yet here we have Penguin Random House bidding $2.2 billion for Simon and Shuster. If its a dying industry why would you expand like that. People have been saying for years that traditional books are doomed, and yet here we are 25 years after e-book readers have been around, and yet people are still reading the most basic form of communication, words printed on a page. Yes the way people read will change, but they will always read. What I find the most optimistic statistic, is that the biggest growing category of print books sold, is in the Young Adukt section, surely that says a lot for the future, doesn't it.

I think that if you put your notes next to your camera you that would help with your eye line. You keep looking down and away.

In Britain £7 for a paperback is just too much. Even charity shops are now over pricing them

I wonder how well celebrity bios are selling. Yes libraries and independent content creators buy them but I wonder if they make their money back

Movies are no longer the attraction they once were either. So as a screenwriter, I feel your pain. Nice statement on modern society's relationship with reading! I like how you think. I wish I had a sweetheart like you in my life. Natural beauty and brains too... ? Yes, please!

It makes me sad to even think books could ever come to an end... I love to read. I buy lots of books. I wrote lots of reviews. I donate back into the community and my safety plan for when/if things get schwifty... I MAKE ZINES!! One day the big 5 will fight over publishing rights to my personal ZINES. There's nothing more satisfying than keeping a world away from prying eyes, so that post mortem it can arrive as -phenomena! Thanks for the heads up. I will write a zine about this!🎉😂❤

Interesting. I self-published a book through amazon. I didn't give a hoot about "status." I just enjoyed writing, wanted to get the information out there, and thought it might help some people. I didn't want to jump through the traditional publishing house hoops - get an agent, all that. I just wanted to get it done and out there, no middleman. I based it on a blog, so I already had some of a reader base - I think that helps. I didn't do any marketing at all, other than announce that it was available on the sites where I typically plugged the blog. I researched how many copies a self-published book typically sells. Answers were all over the map, but the average estimate clustered around a couple dozen for median sales, with many selling zero. I made peace with that before I wrote the book. I figured my blog had already had enough readers to justify the effort of writing, and making a book out of it was just sort of a capstone project. I really expected it to fade into oblivion. Happily, it did better than I expected. I think I'm coming up on about 3000 copies sold so far. It's still selling a modest amount each month, even after three years. I feel good about that. I was relieved when it passed the "couple dozen" mark. I was worried it wouldn't even reach that! Math note: it's important to distinguish between "average" (mean) sales and median sales. "Average sales" will always be skewed high because of the tiny percentage of books that sell millions - those disproportionately pull the average up. Median is a better, more realistic measure. The figure cited in the article - "50% of traditionally published books sell a dozen or fewer copies" - is a median. I too found that a little hard to believe. I can appreciate what the debunker said about the legal context. From what I've heard (not gospel), traditionally published books will sell, on average, a few hundred copies. But again, this is an average (mean), not a median. I don't know what the median sales would be - likely much lower.

Publishing has been dying practically since it began. People may not be buying as many traditionally published books. They're buying more indie books. And "renting" a lot of books through Kindle Unlimited--which is almost entirely indie and self-published. Though more print books are selling now than ever--with sales up by as much as 8.9% vs pre-pandemic numbers. And that undervalues eBooks. (I buy a LOT of books. Most of them are digital.) I *do* agree that traditional publishers are paying less to any but the top sellers. They seem to have forgotten that a robust mid-list can support the publisher so that they aren't as hurt by big flops.

At least audio books are still popular

I bought 120 books just this past year. I guess I am no one.

Well, I buy books like there is no tomorrow. Keeping Amazon in business.

I dont buy PAPER books any more. Digital is a different story. The Kindle is great for reading

They should stop teaching kids in school to read and write. We have AI now to do that stuff for us.

Traditional publishing is dying, yes.

"no one buys books anymore" translation = I don't read

No publishing is not dying, maybe traditional publishing is dying because people are now starting to be there own publisher since traditional publishing is hard to get into. But no traditional publishing is not dying just a few months ago people were saying traditional publishing is dying, then y'all were saying taxi cabs were dying, then y'all were saying that movies were dying. Everything is dying to you all. I think you're just probably from a state where people don't really read. California, New York, Florida, and Philadelphia has the lowest readers. Especially Philadelphia and California. States that read books the most are Oregon, Maine, Washington D.C. and it's another one to I forget the name of the state it's a sate where it snows really bad, but those states are the ones that has the most readers and the ones that don't.

Well hopefully publishing is dying. It's gotten so bad that I don't think things can improve unless we reset to 0 first. A factory reset is needed.

Antiquarian, rare, first editions and signed book sales are off the charts and have been for years. "Americans buy...", there is more to the world than America! Most modern books are absolute rubbish, full to the brim with explicit language, graphic violence and sex scenes akin too porn. If authors focused on excellence instead of mass mediocrity and uglification, maybe their books would sell.

I'm sort of surprised at how little you seem to know about publishing options. It's a pipedream to think you could start with a big publisher, or get an advance. Getting your book accepted by any publishing house can be very, very difficult. Still, you don't want to self-publish. I've done it once and would never repeat it. Just being in a company's catalog is way more advertising than you would get self-published. And advertising on your own is expensive. You are also lumped together with a lot of books that couldn't find a publisher, either because they aren't any good, or because they appeal to such a small audience. There a reason self-published books have such low status, and that is not going to change. I have another book coming out soon, and I'm doing a KZread video to promote it. At this point I think that is kind of a necessity, and I'm surprised the publishing houses aren't more involved in that side of advertising.

Desperate to read Houellebecq's last novel Anihilate publication 2022 France simultaneous translation in to Italian German 2 and half years later still not published by Picador in English who are sitting on the rights. The most important novelist of last 30 years and the last book I wanted to read since the West has ended. Will not be reading it. But will deface it if I see it in bookshop