Publishing and the economy

No point in wasting the work I did researching and surveying industry leaders gathering what I hoped would be an "industry snapshot" of what today's depressed economy is doing to the publishing industry. I've given the talk three times, updating information each time.

In the meantime I keep it online at http://www.terryburns.net/Publishing_and_the_Economy.htm and update information on it constantly as new information comes in. I've gotten mixed reviews on it. From most writers I get good comments on how helpful it is to know what the industry is doing.

I'm also in a group of very well published writers most of whom have well up in the three digit numbers of books published. They weren't impressed. The concensus of the group seemed to be that they didn't need to know the inner workings of the publishing world, that they are always one contract away from unemployment no matter what the industry and the economy is doing. One compared himself to a high wire walker saying he is all right as long as he doesn't look down.

The people who seemed to find the information most interesting were industry people. I've had a dozen editors tell me it got passed around their houses and thanked me for the legwork they hadn't had time to do for themselves. That's nice, and probably doesn't hurt my reputation in the business any.

Things continue to come out and continue to be added while I take other things out that are no longer useful in the article or that have become outdated. In this business things can become outdated at any time during the day.

Doing this doesn't make me any kind of expert on the industry, I'm just quoting other people . . . people in the know. It just means I'm taking time to keep up with it and allow people to find it in one place instead of hunting all over the web for it or interviewing industry people as I've been doing. If we all started doing that they probably wouldn't be very cooperative. That'd be worse than unsolicited submissions.

If it interests you check back now and then. I'll keep updating the info.