Hi Doug,
I doubt that any University press
will take this on, though God knows, they love to do
translations. For my money the best chance we have for these
writers and books, as well as for the old "out of print"
stuff, and for new and unheralded domestic authors, will come
from small web based presses who use the internet to promote
their books and on-demand printing technology to produce
them.
It's a new day adawnin in the
publishing biz, and the big guys won't be able to push the
little guys out of business in cyberspace, because
manufacturing and marketing costs can be kept so low. The big
publishing houses and the mega stores will keep getting
bigger and narrower and doing what they do. They'll own the
mass market and make most of the big bucks.
But those who get into the biz more
out of the love of hard-boiled than because they want to get
rich, can start with a small amount of capital and do a few
books a year without fear that they'll be buried in costs
they can't hope to recover. We could see a new one sprout up
on every cyber corner as the years roll by.
Their production and the marketing
costs can be limited to such a degree that a book selling no
more than a couple hundred copies can sometimes pay for
itself (not counting the cost of the translation), and a 5000
copy seller can be a big winner for everyone (except,
perhaps, the author) No writer will make any real money
unless his or her book takes off and does much better than
that, but what else is new?
Jim
Blue
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