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> You print books? Well we have e-books now.

It's often the same publishers publishing the e-books. They did successfully make that transition.

> Instead they went all in on pulp bestsellers and celebrity memoirs at the expense of actual good authors

If they're best sellers, as you note, that was clearly a good choice. They were selling what people actually wanted.



Are they? Mark Dawson was caught buying 400 copies of his own book in 2020, but he's not the first or last author to have done that.


Yes people are buying John Grisham and JK Rowling and the latest celebrity memoir, but eventually (1) interest will run out and people will want the next new thing and (2) these big brands will realize that they don't need the publishers to market for them (and this is already happening, as the article says). What then?


Regardless of them struggling in the future, publishing books that sell is clearly superior to publishing one's that don't.




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