Gatekeeping

This last week I read a newspaper article saying that 20% of all e-books sold in the UK in 2012 were by indie authors. For those of you that don’t know, this means authors that are not signed by publishers so put out their books under their own steam. The article went on to provide a couple of colourful quotes from the industry, basically lamenting the changing publishing landscape. The suggestion seemed to be that indies are both corrupt and illiterate (great combination!), and that the traditional gatekeepers are needed to protect unsuspecting readers from the horrors of self-published dross.

            I have to confess from the outset that I am a bit partial here (having published two small books myself, an interesting and gratifying experience), but I still thought it would be interesting to consider the arguments.

            Let’s start with the corruption case. The argument seemed to be that indies resort to pretty much anything to flog their flawed goods, including paying for friendship on social media. This is not something I would fancy doing myself, but how unreasonable is it? You won’t sell anything unless people hear of the product, and if you are unlikely to be invited to talk about your writings on breakfast TV then what are you supposed to do? Exposure is everything. Besides, is it not the case that traditional publishers spend a fair bit of money advertising their products?

            Move on to the gatekeeping issue, which I find much more entertaining; It may well be true that, some years ago, the major publishing houses provided real quality. In some cases their main focus may even have been literature, rather than profit. Is this still the case? I’m afraid I doubt this very much. Current publishing seems obsessed with getting on whatever the most recent bandwagon may be. In the last couple of years we have gone from magic and wizardry (thanks Harry!) to vampires and most recently 50 shades of everything apart from the apostles. Is this idea of “more of the same, please, that’s what people want” really compatible with the notion of gatekeeping?

            Whatever you think about that question... The nail in the coffin of quality control must surely be the endless list of books supposedly written by celebrities. You can almost see the scene in the publisher’s office. “Ah, but you’re famous... Why don’t you write a book? We’ll get you a ghostwriter, you don’t have to do anything.”

            I rest my case.

            Now let’s consider the growing indie scene, where authors remain responsible for the entire process, from idea to typing to editing, spell checking, cover design and publicity. Daunting list, and you can’t be surprised if there are very few individuals that can excel in all the required skills. It makes sense that self-published books are of variable quality. With the hurdle to publishing being so incredibly low at the moment (mainly because Amazon wanted to market their Kindle and were intent on world domination, as well) that anyone can put out pretty much anything there will inevitably be huge amounts of very poor quality stuff out there. Do readers need publishers to protect them from this undergrowth of the e-book universe? I think not. People aren’t stupid (no comments, please!). In most cases you only need to read the book blurb to decide if the product is even remotely worth considering.

            We are moving into an era where the readers are the gatekeepers. That’s just as it should be. Most people will remain faithful to the bestseller list, and struggle through the stilted grammar of the latest Dan Brown or the like. Others will shop around. Just like in the world of music, they may find exciting things on the indie scene. In this new era budding authors have an opportunity to go it alone and take full control of their work. In exceptional cases they may become successful this way, but this will only happen if they take the job seriously and work very hard.

            One thing I think is absolutely certain. We have come far from the days of “vanity publishing”. There are indie books out there that are just as good as anything from the big publishers. This is really exciting and it makes it much more fun to look for the next great read.