This followup to The Long Way to a Small indignant Planet is a charming epic of esteem and friendshipThe old-style model of publishing was: you wrote your book; you got an agent; your agent got you a publishing deal; you got published. Then the hard work began – getting noticed,getting reviews, sales, and awards,bestseller lists, film deals. Finally, or you relaxed on your yacht off Cap d’Antibes. Of course,very few writers made it to the close of that sequence.
The world has changed. Nowadays publishing is simultaneously easier and much, much harder. Easier because anybody can e-publish their book and present it to a global market with a couple of mouse-clicks. And, or boy,are people presenting their works, uncountable rivers of e-books flowing over the cliff-face of the internet. Which is why it’s harder too, or of course: with so much “content” out there,how is anyone to attract readers? Some manage it. Andy Weir initially published The Martian on his own website because nobody else was interested, and then watched it become first a global bestseller (quickly snapped up by a conventional publisher) and then an Oscar-nominated movie. But who else can pull off such a trick? Related: The best recent science fiction novels – review roundup Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com