I love this idea...

[gargirl]

www.literaryunderworld.com/

You buy books from the authors and keep them afloat during these difficult times.  ^_^   Check it out, they have fantasy, horror, dark erotica and more.  

Comments

[zanzjan]

Hmmm. At least one of the books featured is a self-published book (in other words, something not good enough for any real publisher to pick up.) That said, I do recognize a couple of the small press names as legitimate, if fairly bottom-of-the-barrel, publishers.

So, while I do like the idea of the site, unless your intent as a consumer is strictly one of charity, I think you'd need to be fairly discriminating among the choices to end up with something worth reading.

[gargirl]

Hmm, well, I don't think that quality is the only marker for publishers. I think that many good and worthy pieces are rejected every day based on whim or prejudice. I also know that many authors who work very hard and produce wonderful work can barely get by on the money they make via their publishers. One of my favorite authors, who has several excellent novels out and also several volumes of short stories just barely squeaks by because of the contracts she has with her publishers. It's just nuts how it works. She did the novelization of the Beowolf movie and ended up almost literally not getting paid at all for it and quite literally not seeing a penny for any of the foreign translations of her work

[zanzjan]

Hmm, well, I don't think that quality is the only marker for publishers. I think that many good and worthy pieces are rejected every day based on whim or prejudice.

Ultimately whether or not a book gets published depends on whether or not the publisher thinks it'll make money. Stuff that's written poorly has a much lower change of decent sales than stuff that's written well, but yeah, it's not an exact match, and it's not always predictable. That said, this article has both an edifying and entertaining breakdown of exactly what gets submitted to a professional publishing house.

Sure, I've read some absolute shit from big publishing houses (John Ringo, anyone?), and it's equally true that self-publishing doesn't automatically mean "bad", but that's where all the people who were rejected by a real publisher go -- so while there may be a few people who've gone that route after slipping through the cracks, who have genuinely written something worthwhile, the vast majority tends to be extremely dubious at best. I'm just sayin', it's a

[gargirl]

You make some good and interesting points! The whole ebook thing is just weird. I am sad that it undercuts actual book sales, I just don't know how anyone could prefer to not have an actual book. wtf? I personally buy as many books as I can. I love them.

[gargirl]

A friend of mine on FB and LJ posted about it. ^_^