I've found the traditional publishing industry really interesting. It's so hard to get approved or even noticed from the gatekeepers[0]. Even getting a rejection from an agent can take months. And agents are just the very first gate. Being agented can be lightyears away from getting published.

And after so many layers of gatekeeping and due process, what got to the shelves are like, uh, Kiss of the Basilisk. I mean it totally makes sense in from a marketing perspective, but the whole situation is a little bit funny.

[0]: used as a neutral term, not a negative one

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protocolture an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I have noticed some publishers are changing the way they do things, sliding into writer spaces and looking for books that are nearly ready to be published but havent found their way onto the slush pile, because no human can actually digest a slush pile anymore.

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bombcar 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Everyone and their LLM is flooding them with slop every day, it's no wonder it's hard to get any feedback whatsoever.

And even if you do get selected, you may fail for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of your writing.

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lamasery 5 hours ago | parent [-]

As far as I can tell it's nearly impossible to get picked up by a major publisher now unless you're bringing a very large social media following.

If you've got the social media following, your book can be really bad and it'll still get published (examples... abound). The book hardly matters, guaranteed sales via an audience you bring to the table (so, no work for them) is what they're interested in.

I mean, it was already nearly impossible, but now it's nearly-impossibler (nearlier-impossible?), with the social media following being almost necessary to make it even a very-long-shot instead of a no-you're-definitely-getting-rejected.

	▲	TheOtherHobbes 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The best possible position is to have a breakout self-published hit. An author with that can hand the boring difficult expensive parts - print and distribution - over to a trad publisher, and keep the rights to ebooks, audio books, movies, and the rest, hiring negotiating talent as and when it's needed. For breakout authors, publishers will often get in touch directly. Agents are basically - well, I don't know any more. There used to be a point to them, but now they're running a kind of cottage industry of pointless gatekeeping for wannabes who will make pennies even if they are picked up. It's not the same industry it was fifty years. It's not even the same industry it was twenty years ago. A lot of wannabes haven't worked this out yet. They still think a proper author goes through proper channels, and is properly anointed with a proper agent and a proper contract. And then most of them are surprised to discover their properly published book sells less than a thousand copies, and it's off the shelves almost immediately - because that's how print works unless you're a Big Name - and they can't give up their day jobs.