Disruptive Forces: Politics and Publishing
Disruptive Forces: Politics and Publishing by Debra H. Goldstein
I should be writing my blog, but instead I’m glued to my television set. The New Hampshire results are coming in. This is anything but the end of the political campaign, but a commentator just used a phrase to describe one candidate that I think probably could be used for the entire process. He called the candidate “a disruptive force.”
During the past few weeks, I’ve been concerned about many issues: health care, terrorism, poverty, international relations, immigration, cultural diversity and criminal justice to name a few. Although no candidate and I could ever agree on solutions for all of these issues, my hope has been that I could identify one that either holds most of my views or has rational proposals I’ve never considered.
The fact is the rhetoric is different every day. Muddled, middle, disruptive, and changing are all words being used by the pundits to describe the campaigns and how the process will whittle down the number of candidates in the race. These same words can be applied to the writing arena.
During the past few years, the multitude of large publishing houses shrunk, as has the subsidiary banners these houses published under. Recently, the mystery world was hit by announcements that Berkley Prime and Cengage, the biggest textbook publisher, will be discontinuing mystery series/lines. For writers and readers in the cozy and traditional mystery world, these announcements translate to at least one hundred books a year that will probably never be published. Some authors may find homes for their works or derivatives of their series with smaller houses or may choose to self-publish, but unless they already have established followings, most will find their works reaching far less readers than they would have “the way things were.”
I’m not sure which candidate will become president, but I am certain this streamlining of the publishing world will mean corporate profits rising to the detriment of readers and writers. The “disruptive forces” at work here will result in readers having less books to choose from while writers, having less alternatives, will discover their earning and negotiation abilities compromised at the same time they are having to work harder to find homes for their works.
Do you think we could add the state of the publishing world to the next debate?
Debra, what a particularly apt analogy. Thank you for bringing a voice of clarity to a disruptive season. It's not too late for you to throw your hat in the ring for a higher office.
Debra, you wrote;"will result in readers having less books to choose from while writers, having less alternatives". Fewer is the correct word, not Less. I had to tell you; I'm a retired teacher and the use of less rather than fewer drives me nuts! I really enjoy your writings.
Debra,
I doubt that any debate will touch on such an important, practical issue. They seem to stay in the territory of let's not allow women to even have birth control or LGBTQ people to marry or brown children born here to have citizenship or non-white people to be allowed to vote. Or the even more important territory of building a wall to rival the Great Wall of China (which didn't keep the barbarians out, after all) or clarifying that it really wasn't the bodies of the rulers the pyramids were built to hold but grain (in spite of all the tombs found in pyramids and lack of grain) and, of course, let's not forget the aliens. All that more important stuff.
If I begin to comment on this, I will find it hard to quit. I am very, very disturbed and worried about the future of our country. People on the left and right are very angry and upset, and rightly so, but they differ on how to fix things…or as to which person running for President can HOPE to fix things. There are no easy answers, and I fear that whoever becomes the next President will have a mess on his/her hands that will not be fixable. Things have become too extreme, and there is no shame. None. There are people of good will, but they are not those who control the media or the purse strings. Ooops, now I see I am deep into my rant so I must stop. Sorry. Sign me…discouraged.
I'm glued to CNN.