Today I retired from writing books.<\/p>\n
After 24 years and 70 books, I am — after I complete my current book — done.<\/p>\n
Book publishing was a lousy business when I got into it in 1982 …. and it’s gone steadily downhill ever since.<\/p>\n
One reason is the sharp decline in book readership — and the reduction in importance of books to society.<\/p>\n
This has been brought on, of course, by the Internet.<\/p>\n
Another reason is the publishing world’s new obsession with “platform” — an author having a ready audience to ensure sales of his work.<\/p>\n
Now publishers don’t buy a book from the author who can write the best book.<\/p>\n
They buy it from the author who has the best Web site on the book topic … the largest e-newsletter subscriber list … and the busiest speaking schedule.<\/p>\n
The third reason publishing is in ruins is that there are way too many books published.<\/p>\n
The shelves are too crowded, and it’s harder for worthy titles to stand out.<\/p>\n
Advanced for midlist and backlist authors, meanwhile, have declined to a new level of poverty.<\/p>\n
And publishers are having authors turn out formula books like machines.<\/p>\n
A major publisher recently asked me to write a complex 120,000-word book — in 3 months — and for a lousy $10,000!<\/p>\n
I used to love the book industry, despite all its flaws.<\/p>\n
Now I can’t walk into a Barnes & Noble without becoming overwhelmingly depressed.<\/p>\n
I still love to READ books … and I worry that this too may cease being a pleasure for me.<\/p>\n
I definitely need a hobby, now that I will no longer be writing my two or three books a year.<\/p>\n
Any suggestions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today I retired from writing books. After 24 years and 70 books, I am — after I complete my current book — done. Book publishing was a lousy business when I got into it in 1982 …. and it’s gone steadily downhill ever since. One reason is the sharp decline in book readership — and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}