PUBLISHING TODAY

Why do writers write? A few in every generation decide early on they want to be writers, get a Masters in English or Creative Writing and hunt for a do-anything job in a publishing house. Many begin to write in the evening and, after a year or so, complete a novel or a memoir. Some are fortunate to have their effort read. However, only a few may actually get published. One of these writers may become the darling of a publisher, write a book every year, make the N.Y.Times Best Seller list, and live happily ever after. 

At the beginning of the 21^stcentury the publishing industry experienced significant changes. Technology like e-books and Print on Demand became available, bookstores changed ownership, publishing personnel changed jobs, and new presses appeared. Men and women of all occupations with computers and printers decided they had a story to tell and wanted readers. Manuscripts from butchers and bakers, doctors and lawyers and even a professor proliferated like dandelions on a summer lawn, and thousands of unsolicited ones unread filled publisher’s waste paper baskets to overflowing.

            Surely, among those myriads of manuscripts awaiting the shredder, there must be a few gems, which will never be published. I think of a verse from Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyardthat goes,

            “Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 

             The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: 

             Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, 

            And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

            

  Literary agents increased in number and self-publishing presses offered frustrated writers the opportunity to “publish” their work. For a healthy sum, such presses will accept a manuscript and produce printed copies of books for the author. Marketing of these books is left to the author who can use them to distribute to friends and family to satisfy his desire for readers. As my wife would say, “It is what it is”.