Publishing Is Broken, We're Drowning In Indie Books - And That's A Good Thing

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Why do mainstream authors dislike Indie publishing to the point where some even disagree with the coined term “Indie”? It comes down to worldview. Bestselling authors who are talented and hard working – like Thor and Grafton – are inclined to believe that publishing is a meritocracy where the best work by the most diligent writers gets represented, acquired, published and sold. But this is demonstrably untrue. The most famous counter example is that of John Kennedy Toole.

Many people know that Toole had his great American novel, “A Confederacy of Dunces” rejected by publishers and that he committed suicide at 31. They may not realize that Robert Gottleib at Simon & Schuster recognized Toole’s talent but believed Confederacy to be structurally flawed. Gottlieb did not think there was an audience for The Confederacy of Dunces without major revisions – revisions that would have changed the character of the novel. Toole refused to comply and eventually committed suicide.

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There is something very odd about this war of words between successful authors on different sides of a tectonic shift in the publishing world: it doesn’t exist in many similar industries facing the same sort of technological upheaval. You don’t hear Christina Aguilera or Adam Levine knocking indie bands. Instead they joined a show called “The Voice” which aims to capitalize on the credibility of indie artists by finding journeyman artists and giving them a shot at major label contracts. Indie filmmakers are revered, not reviled, partly because they eschew the studio system and its constraints on artistic expression. And the art world seems keenly attuned to the idea that the next Georgia O’Keeffe might be producing revolutionary work somewhere out of their sight until she turns 30.

Publishing is different from other creative industries because the machinery has not yet adapted to the profound technological shift it is undergoing. But it’s not completely alone. Perhaps the best comparison is in comedy, where a new generation of comedians like Louis C.K. is changing the way that comedy is produced and marketed. As reported by Sean McCarthy in The Comic’s Comic, the comedian Patton Oswalt said as much in two letters he read to a comedy conference in Montreal this year.