ThomasLitchford

Plenty of now famous writers have self-published in the past. But that was the past. The markets for both self-published and traditionally published books are now so glutted that some (good) books inevitably go unnoticed.

The same is not necessarily true for music and film and visual art. These art forms can be appreciated by large groups of people simultaneously: at the theater, at a concert, at a gallery. And people (critics) can consume these art forms relatively quickly.

Books, on the other hand, are expensive to print and take time to consume. Writers/publishers have not perfected (or at least adopted) a standardized means of cheap mass distribution.

Is there a way to do this? Could something like digg.com work for the querying process? (People submit links to news stories and interesting websites, videos, photos, etc. Then the users ‘digg’ them or bury them. The ones that receive the most diggs ‘rise’ to the front page.)

I’m not a programmer, but someone who knows his/her way around PHP should build this site: Users (authors) submit queries and sample chapters in a standardized format. Other users (authors, agents, editors) read the queries and/or chapters and rate them (good or bad). The good ones will rise to the top. Maybe there the full text of the book will be available along with the author’s contact information.

It’s an idea. The publishing world needs to step into the Internet Age. I mean, come on, a lot of agencies don’t even have websites!