I'm so happy you wrote this counter-piece. I read @kathleenschmidt's great response to that other post and basically agreed with everything she said, and was hoping for a better breakdown of what was so incredibly off about it—and here you are. It presents to us some of pitfalls of Substack, too, which is that everyone is a reporter(!), …
I'm so happy you wrote this counter-piece. I read @kathleenschmidt's great response to that other post and basically agreed with everything she said, and was hoping for a better breakdown of what was so incredibly off about it—and here you are. It presents to us some of pitfalls of Substack, too, which is that everyone is a reporter(!), and there's no fact-checking(!). There was so much missing context, too, like the fact that book publishing is a giant ecosystem with the Big Five, yes, but also indies, and hybrids, and self-published authors. And what did any of it have to do with people not buying books? I'm a hybrid book publisher, and people are not only buying our books; they're buying books that big houses passed on because the Big Five didn't think these titles had a big enough readership. We are not aspiring to sell even 10,000 copies. That would be awesome, but our average sales are more like 1000-4000 per title, and we are still a $1 million dollar publisher. There is much about book publishing that people do not understand. It takes work to get under the hood. The DOJ didn't get it. And that other piece certainly got it wrong. Grateful for your work, Lincoln!
I'm so happy you wrote this counter-piece. I read @kathleenschmidt's great response to that other post and basically agreed with everything she said, and was hoping for a better breakdown of what was so incredibly off about it—and here you are. It presents to us some of pitfalls of Substack, too, which is that everyone is a reporter(!), and there's no fact-checking(!). There was so much missing context, too, like the fact that book publishing is a giant ecosystem with the Big Five, yes, but also indies, and hybrids, and self-published authors. And what did any of it have to do with people not buying books? I'm a hybrid book publisher, and people are not only buying our books; they're buying books that big houses passed on because the Big Five didn't think these titles had a big enough readership. We are not aspiring to sell even 10,000 copies. That would be awesome, but our average sales are more like 1000-4000 per title, and we are still a $1 million dollar publisher. There is much about book publishing that people do not understand. It takes work to get under the hood. The DOJ didn't get it. And that other piece certainly got it wrong. Grateful for your work, Lincoln!