Calcutta

The marketing is still crap

There are 3,700 people employed in publishing – a small industry, really – according to the surveys (via the Australian Publishers Association). Those interested people following current trends here and worldwide will know that mergers and acquisitions in the sector are a regular news item and, ultimately, make it harder for independent houses to maintain a presence in a boisterous market where it can be easier for bookshops to follow the dominant players and probably get some added benefits for doing so. Who knows how this market will fare a year on and how many Australian voices will be included. Right now, the unspoken reality is that advances to authors are spiralling downwards along with sales and, obviously, royalty payments. Fewer and fewer writers reach what they expected in financial and career-building stakes, even those making new books fairly and squarely in the mainstream… In the new etiquette of social media, each book apparently needs its own framework and journey, while authors, debut or veteran, are expected to muck in and do their own marketing and ‘brand building’ in the online marketplace. That’s what it looks like, anyway, to this observer. I am supposedly an insider but am perpetually perplexed by the fame stakes involved in becoming an author, as well as the claim that authors have viable careers.