Of course we all know, or should do, just how difficult it is to get our babies into print. There's a dearth, (or should that be death?), of published material these days, and for those of us not yet published it seems an almost impossible task.
I was just reading about a group of writers who have been advised that their work will almost certainly never get into print. They are a team of 80 lexicographers who have been working on the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary for the last twenty one years, yes, twenty one, and have so far completed 28% of it! How's that for dedication? I half joked to my wife that they'll proabably have to chip in a few quid each and self publish.
And then I thought, hang on, that's not a bad idea. Could not a group of successful but frustrated published authors get together and buy a small but well established traditional publishing house, act as their own readers and editors, and publish their books in the normal way, complete with distribution deals, Amazon contracts, and so on? Or possibly establish a new company to do the same thing? Many top photographers have done that very successfully by forming their own agency, and what about tennis players and golfers who collectively own their money making circuits? The American film company United Artists did it successfully when a group of top actors got together, so why not authors?
It could even be done by none published writers like myself getting together to help and advise each other to self publish a selection of our own work. I'm sure better results could be obtained than by each of us doing it solo. A combined effort at polishing the writing first, and then promoting each others books as a group would surely result in a lot of satisfaction, if not a lot of profit!
This new blog of mine doesn't appear to have any readers yet, but I would love some comments on these thoughts if anyone is out there. Helloooooooo ......
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