And the Big Five (including Harlequin and most of the romance publishers) are *still* hosing the writers. Despite a new sales model, their treatment of authors hasn’t changed one bit.

I think Amazon with replace the Big Six starting with Thomas Nelson and the larger and more successful indies will fill in the vacuum. Especially after the implosion of RWA and the giant Charlie Foxtrot with Penguin (like literally the DAY AFTER this post) and B&N putting literature in blackface to celebrate Black History Month. They are too out of touch and I wash my hands of hoping for them.

I think the problem with allowing the readers be the gatekeepers is that there are people who think all self-published books are rubbish. Else why haven’t they been published traditionally? They think publishers won’t touch them, and so won’t buy self-published books.
There is a lot of ignorance about publishing in the populace. They think if a book is good, it will be picked up by a publisher. They also believe that books written by ‘celebrities ‘ are actually by them. Never heard of ghost writers! (Not that I’m saying all such books are ghost-written. Just that some are.)

With 3 books published and 20 more to go (in draft), I need to know this stuff. 🙂

It’s brutal out the and most of us (aka ‘me’) are ill prepared to climb the mountain of information available.

I think they are going to have to be replaced. As much as I have held out hope. After the $#!t show for Black History Month the DAY after I posted some hope for Random Penguin? I had egg on my face and am DONE rooting for them. If THIS is how far they have evolved? https://authorkristenlamb.com/2020/02/barnes-noble-puts-literary-classics-in-blackface-for-black-history-month/ I HOPE they go extinct. The world is better without them.

But there were problems with the old system, and the Big Five are still going to have limited slots–in my previous comment, I was trying to point to that out. (as for my credentials, I’m an active SFWA member and one of my stories was on the Preliminary List for the Nebula in 1998). Yes, gatekeeping needs to happen–but can we really trust the Big Five to do anything for authors besides what they’re doing now?