[quartesixte]

Really wish one of the billionaires would fund a publishing house that worked off a very different model than the Copyright Protection Scheme that the current majors used. Something that would allow authors to capture upsides, publishers to recoup, and information to spread freely.

Patronage? Large Advances + Subscriptions?

Something besides what we have now. Writing a 200 - 300 page book takes fair bit of effort and time that is not directly compensated, hence advances and the upside of royalties.

[vidarh]

The majority of authors who write novels hardly earn money as it is. I've written two novels, and they've sold more than average, and yet it can't cover my takeaway budget. That's fine, it's a hobby. But the point is only a vanishingly small minority write for money.

Of course we want to keep some of those who do, but I don't know what a good solution would be. Not least because there's a vast chasm in terms of effort: a novel of the same length can take days or years, and it's not at all a given the low effort one will be the worst one.

[jandrese]

It's not about making money for the author, it's about making money for the publishing company. Nobody in government cares about the authors.

[daedrdev]

Even the publishers themselves loose money on most books they publish. Its something crazy like 65% of titles loose money, and 4% of books make 60% of the profits

They book industry is much similar to venture capital, where a bunch of bets are made on books that they hope they hit it big, and get the rest of their income from the long tail of previous books they hang onto.

https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books