The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem | The Walrus

Companies keep betting on the next bestseller. Literature is poorer for it

In 1970, a New York publishing company put out a debut novel by an editor and former teacher from Ohio. The press, then known as Holt, Rinehart and Winston, had taken a chance on the book, which had been rejected by numerous other houses. The initial print run was somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 units—modest expectations that looked justified when, in the first year, sales barely cleared 2,000. This despite getting positive reviews in the New York Times and The New Yorker and being assigned to freshman classes at the City College of New York. The attention wasn’t enough. Four years later,…

saved by

• ami b

related reading

• No one will read your book - by Elle Griffin - The Elysianelysian.press
• MY DEBUT NOVEL WAS A FLOPharoldrogers.substack.com
• At Random, by Christian Lorentzenharpers.org
• No one buys books - by Elle Griffin - The Elysianelysian.press
• The Cultural Decline of Literary Fictionoyyy.substack.com
• What Was Literary Fiction? | The Nationthenation.com
• When Ruthless Cultural Elitism Is Exactly the Job - The New York Timesnytimes.com
• The NYT Book Review Is Everything Book Criticism Shouldn't Becurrentaffairs.org
• Literary Hub >> Winning the Game You Didn’t Even Want to Play: On Sally Rooney and the Literature of the Poselithub.com
• What Can We Learn from Barnes & Noble's Surprising Turnaround?tedgioia.substack.com
• The Key to the Kingdom, or How I Sold Too Like the Lightning – Ex Urbeexurbe.com
• Your Name Here: The Secret History - Helen DeWitthelendewitt.substack.com