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fliptop [soylentnews.org] writes:

As an avid reader, I have often wondered why a lot of new literature at big bookstores like BAM [booksamillion.com] seems uninteresting and, frankly, woke. It turns out my observations do not seem to be far off base [thefp.com]:

On September 19, 2022, Elle Griffin, a freelance writer in Salt Lake City, published the first installment of her new fantasy novel, Oblivion, on Substack, under the title “We will create a more beautiful world.”

Since then, Griffin, who has written for Esquire and Forbes, has picked up a few hundred paid subscribers. She’s now earning more than $30,000 annually from her writing—more than she’s ever made.

By contrast, if she’d gone the traditional route and landed an agent and a major publisher, Griffin said, the best she could have hoped for would have been a $10,000 advance, and she would have been lucky to sell 1,000 copies—meaning no extra money.

The article goes on to describe how wokeness has taken over the 5 major publishers (Penguin Random House, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and HarperCollins), examples of authors who have been shunned because they didn't have the right skin color, or their literature didn't fit "the narrative." In the wake of these occurrences, new book publishers have risen up to take the risks the major houses won't.

For years, there has been a growing politicization inside the industry, which editors describe as a slowly percolating illiberalism that makes it difficult to publish books by authors who don’t adhere to the new dogma. Out of fear of losing their jobs and friends, these editors (we spoke with ten across these publishing houses) insisted upon speaking anonymously.

“It’s so much harder to publish controversial books than it was when Judith Regan published Rush Limbaugh back in the day,” said an editor at a major publishing house, referring to Regan’s time as a Simon & Schuster editor in the early nineties, when she acquired a book [amazon.com] by the conservative radio host.

The new dogma, industry insiders told me, is two-pronged: books should advance the narrative that people of color are victims of white supremacy; and nonblack and non-Latino authors should avoid characters who are black and Latino—even if their characters toe the officially approved narrative. (White authors who write about black or Latino people oppressed by white people have been accused of exploiting their characters’ trauma.)

The author concludes with:

I get why the established writers who haven’t flocked to the independent publishing world can’t speak publicly. I get why they feel compelled to nod along with the herd while secretly signaling their support for those who won’t play along. But eventually, if they want the traditional literary world to return to some semblance of normalcy, they will have to speak up. In the meantime, alternative voices will continue to take their place.

See also: Writers and Publishers Face an Existential Threat From AI: Time to Embrace the True Fans Model [soylentnews.org]

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