Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Just Thought I'd Share...

a blog posting on the Good website is entitled, "Books Are the New Cars: Major Publishing Houses Follow American Automakers into Financial Abyss."

Those of us who write for children have long railed against the huge advances paid to celebs who think they can write for children. Ha! I guess those, and other advances (blogger Anne Trubeck: "Sarah Palin meanwhile received a reported $7 million advance...") are now coming back to bite the Big 3 in the butt.

I'm sure OUR little publisher will love reading this:
Should we weed the big boys out? In the dirt of fallen conglomerates, might more flowers bloom? There are already dozens of struggling, small presses (which of course is not true of automakers) and hundreds of deserving authors who only ask for modest, middle-class advances.

Click on the link above and read. I guarantee you'll be right there with Ms. Trubeck.

--Diane

3 comments:

Andrea Murphy said...

Ha! When Houghton-Mifflin began not responding to submissions a few years back, I thought it was the height of arrogance. How damned hard is it to stuff a form rejection into a prepaid SASE and send it on its way? Unless they weren't even opening submissions, there was no good reason not to respond to everything.

Oh, how the mighty are falling.

Anonymous said...

I'm just catching up with my blog reading. Thanks for bringing this post to our attention, Diane. There are many reasons I decided to start a publishing company. One reason is that I believe there are readers for more types of books than the large houses offer. I think, as a group of women writers and illustrators, we have done a fabulous job of producing a good product and bringing great stories and examples of success and strength to both children and adults.

Anonymous said...

I agree!