[ghshephard]

The difference is - for every 1 book that a reputable publisher puts out, they reject 1000. Now, perhaps 500 of those books might have OK, and maybe 50 of them might have been quite good, and it's entirely possible that the 1 book they did chose to publish, was not as good as 10-15 others they rejected - but, on the flip side, it's highly unlikely that the publisher is going to chose one of the 500 dogs that never deserve to see the light of day.

The problem with Crowd sourced reviews, is that quite often, other people might like quite crappy books. The job of a publisher isn't to just find a book that they like, but that the general reading population will love.

I appreciate and respect what the publisher does as part of their filtering - I just suspect they are extracting more value than they are worth.

Hopefully established authors are able to negotiate increasingly more lucrative deals as a reflection of both the reduced risk, as well as the increased value they bring to the equation (as well as the reduced value that the publisher brings. I can't tell you who Stephen King's publisher is...)

[TheOtherHobbes]

It's true that a whole lot of important filtering goes on.

Otherwise we'd have to put up with Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, when we could be reading polished high-quality titles that twinkle with the elusive literary aura that only publishers can add.

[snerk]

Here is The Thing: publishing used to be an educated middle class business catering to educated middle class readers.

Self-publishing opened the market to less-educated writers producing work for less-educated readers. Amazon basically reinvented the old Victorian penny dreadful market in digital form.

Does this matter? Not really. The penny dreadfuls didn't kill literature. In fact, in a round-about way, they eventually launched science fiction and fantasy as genres.

Publishers gave up on real literature back in the 80s, when all the old small semi-amateur publishing houses were swallowed by corporate sharks. So don't look for not-crappy there.

There is some basic filtering to eliminate people who can't write at all. But Amazon reviewers are getting pickier, so it's not obvious the can't write at all crowd will survive for much longer.

Meanwhile, many not-quite-mainstream writers have pulled themselves out of publisher-enforced poverty by selling direct.

Is this a bad thing? No, it really isn't.

[efuquen]

Let's be honest here, I would say most publisher's aren't filtering to keep the quality of writing high but to publish anything they think will sell a certain amount. If they rejected a book because it wasn't written well but it was then self-published and ended up being very popular and selling well I would imagine most publisher's would wish they had signed the author, regardless of how bad the writing is.

A publisher filters to find books that will sell, not to find great writing. In some instances great writing will sell quite well, in others that crappy romance novel can be a hit with a lot people. Publisher's release garbage all the time, it's not like they're some guardian angels of good writing. Maybe it would be awesome if we could just let the readers decide whether a book is good to them or not?

As a side note, the assumption here is that reviews are legit and not bought. To me the non-ideal situation of fake reviews is a separate issue vs the principle of whether legitimate customer reviews can serve as a good filter for readers. My experience has been that they certianly can.

[sheepmullet]

"The problem with Crowd sourced reviews, is that quite often, other people might like quite crappy books. The job of a publisher isn't to just find a book that they like, but that the general reading population will love."

I don't care about the "general reading population"; I want books that I will enjoy. Recommendation engines provide a lot more value in this area than publishers (at least for fiction).