That Viacom case study is classic! Thanks for bringing that up.
*chuckles* The "industry" is a traditional niche market, much like Sci-Fi. Except that it has the notorious reputation for having pretty lousy fiction (I'm sorry but it's true--I've _bought_ enough bad fiction from small presses in this genre to last me a life time; lesbian movies are also generally pretty awful). That "weeding out" process by publishers is not as vigorous as it could be--perhaps due to the ethnocentric viewpoint of the publishers (think of the hooha that was the Lambda literary awards) and what they think of as the intended audience, who are desperate for any kind of visibility in the media that they have no choice but to swallow bad products. (Karin Kallmaker and others who were pirated are not among those, obviously.)
The Science Fiction Writers of America has a pretty neat article on the possible problems of print on demand. If you want facts, here's Jamie Hall's account, someone who actually did do research on POD before she went in. Again, there are perfectly successful authors who have emerged from POD but it's not an easier or sustainable model by any means.
no subject
That Viacom case study is classic! Thanks for bringing that up.
*chuckles* The "industry" is a traditional niche market, much like Sci-Fi. Except that it has the notorious reputation for having pretty lousy fiction (I'm sorry but it's true--I've _bought_ enough bad fiction from small presses in this genre to last me a life time; lesbian movies are also generally pretty awful). That "weeding out" process by publishers is not as vigorous as it could be--perhaps due to the ethnocentric viewpoint of the publishers (think of the hooha that was the Lambda literary awards) and what they think of as the intended audience, who are desperate for any kind of visibility in the media that they have no choice but to swallow bad products. (Karin Kallmaker and others who were pirated are not among those, obviously.)
The Science Fiction Writers of America has a pretty neat article on the possible problems of print on demand. If you want facts, here's Jamie Hall's account, someone who actually did do research on POD before she went in. Again, there are perfectly successful authors who have emerged from POD but it's not an easier or sustainable model by any means.