The more I learn about the Publishing Industry, the more
I’m reminded of those Russian dolls that have layers within layers. Publishing
is an old industry, with a lot of history and it has undergone lots of changes,
many of which are happening right now with the ebook revolution. Here’s the
gist of how my publisher operates, if you follow the chain up:
My novels will be published via the imprint, Thomas Dunne
Books, founded in New York in the 1980s. They in turn produce about a quarter
of the books printed by St. Martin’s Press each year, also based in New York
and founded in the 1950s. St. Martin’s, in turn, is a division of the British
mega-publisher Macmillan (one of the famous Big Six), which is based in London
and was founded in the 1840s.
That’s right, the 1840s! They published authors such as
Yeats and Tennyson. Macmillan is in turn owned by an even larger media
corporation responsible for literary estates ranging from Salman Rushdie to
Agatha Christie. And somewhere at the bottom of that mix, at the tail end of
that lengthy story is…me. One author, writing one book at a time, hoping to add
my own humble little verse to the larger play we call life. Whew! Bottoms up my
friends, bottoms up.
No comments:
Post a Comment