Comments on: What’s Next for Authors http://www.warrenadler.com/whats-next-for-authors.shtml The Official Website Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:08:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Bill Glass http://www.warrenadler.com/whats-next-for-authors.shtml/comment-page-1#comment-744 Bill Glass Sat, 23 Jan 2010 04:20:43 +0000 http://www.warrenadler.com/540.shtml#comment-744 I agree with your analysis in this excellent article. The new goal of author will be less to find the publisher -- someone to print and distribute the book -- than to find the best publicist. That person may be the publicist but writing doesn't necessarily make one a publicist. The job may be the one with which the publisher is left. But it may be agents -- or bookstores -- or readers. I part company with you that the "a vast worldwide literacy expands beyond our wildest imagination." Yes, it would be wonderful, but, according to the National Adult Assessment of Adult Literacy" conducted by the DOE, from around 1993 to 2003 adult literacy at the highest level -- "proficient" decreased 2% in the US. I think the distractions mean that readers with the concentration to read long, complicated and difficult texts become fewer and fewer as a percentage of the population. I saw reviews on Amazon explaining that Virginia Woolf was read a terrific writer, but you can't read her while watching TV. The need for that explanation makes me a little queasy. I agree with your analysis in this excellent article. The new goal of author will be less to find the publisher — someone to print and distribute the book — than to find the best publicist. That person may be the publicist but writing doesn’t necessarily make one a publicist. The job may be the one with which the publisher is left. But it may be agents — or bookstores — or readers.

I part company with you that the “a vast worldwide literacy expands beyond our wildest imagination.” Yes, it would be wonderful, but, according to the National Adult Assessment of Adult Literacy” conducted by the DOE, from around 1993 to 2003 adult literacy at the highest level — “proficient” decreased 2% in the US. I think the distractions mean that readers with the concentration to read long, complicated and difficult texts become fewer and fewer as a percentage of the population. I saw reviews on Amazon explaining that Virginia Woolf was read a terrific writer, but you can’t read her while watching TV. The need for that explanation makes me a little queasy.

]]>