This might be true, if the processes used by the gatekeepers were selecting for quality. Here’s an exercise: Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the center. On one side, list all of the things that you, personally, look for in a novel. On the other side, list all of the things that the gatekeepers select for, remembering that the first echelon is agents, whose first screen (the query) will not include a word of the actual novel. Take a bright yellow highlighter and mark all of the things you can find on both sides of the list. Not many, I’ll bet.

Now do it again, except this time, list all of the things publishers need in order to make money (books that can be caricatured in a paragraph and authors who can do so, books that have enough chases and crashes to make a blockbuster movie…) vs all of the things agents select for (books that can be caricatured in a paragraph and authors who can do so, books that have enough chases and crashes to make a blockbuster movie…).

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the gatekeepers of the corporate publishing industry have either the authors or the readers in mind.

For me, it gets to the point where the lack of accolades (blurbs, Oprah endorsements, etc) is seen as a reason to read a book. (I’ll be writing more on that subject in a post later).

Three Rivers Press (a subsidiary of Crown Books/Random House) publishes lots of Ann Coulter Books. Harper Collins is owned by News Corps/Fox, and CBS/Simon & Schuster publishes Glen Beck on one of its imprints.

So Crown Books/Random House/Simon & Schuster are brands which are dirt to me.

That said, it is always a joy to learn about a small publisher who publish a small eclectic group of writers. I just recently discovered McSweeney’s books, which are just gorgeous on the outside (not to mention the inside). I would probably buy a McSweeney’s book sight unseen just on the basis of the brand.

One panel on publishing talked about how publishers should brand their products better. But how can a publisher whose imprint publishes Ann Coulter ever be associated with literary quality?

At least with Lulu and smashwords, we know that there are real-live authors trying to establish their voices (instead of a corporation trying to cash in on some ephemeral cultural fad).

The real failure, I would argue, is online literary ezines. Yes, they exist, but are they interesting/relevant? If I want to discover new authors online, where should I go? After 12 years of web surfing, I still have not come up with an adequate answer (although podcasts like KCRW Bookworm and Writing Show and Escape Pod do a lot for that).

(On second thought: Finding Free Ebooks Online, Stumble Upon and Feedbooks are good sources for some contemporary works).

Even amongst published works, to invoke Sturgeon’s law, 95% of everything published is well.. lets just say not really worth reading. If we look at the 2 million manuscripts to 400,000 published that Ms. Gropen refers to, and we assume that the 1.6 million unpublished manuscripts are not worth reading (Which I don’t actually believe to be true), then at worst we have extended Sturgeon’s law to 99% of everything published. So we are not exactly making it that much harder.

In addition, I suspect that perhaps as much as 5% of unpublished works are in fact worth reading, then rather than merely saving us from 1.6 million bad books, that we are being shielded from 80 thousand good books. (If you apply Sturgeon’s law to the 400,000 books that are published, 20,000 will be generally considered good… if we apply it to the 2 million, well, then 100,000 will be considered good).

Ultimately, the vast majority of books published every year fail to earn enough to make up the advance the author was paid by the publisher. We have to wonder how good the publishers are not only at picking good books, but even marketable ones? When a book is good though, if it gets published, it will find its market place. Even now, some authors are finding a market place by making books available online.

I don’t blame the publishing industry for trying to find a justification for their existence. The problem is, that as time goes on, it becomes harder and harder for them to do so.

We desperately need a new system of vetting, examining and selecting content, as the old methods are no longer logical or workable. The “gatekeeper” concept is one whose time, and usefulness, has passed.

Why? There are 2 million manuscripts floating around the US in any one year. There are already more than 400,000 new books being published in the US each year.

NO ONE can read all of them, even if they can narrow it down to books in their interest area. Editors and agents have the ability to look at a very small part of a writers’ work and tell if they can make it work for their part of the market. They’re not perfect, but they’re very, very good — or they find another line of work.

Predictive algorithms, such as Amazon’s or iTunes’, are also good, but they do something different.

I understand completely the reaction you’re expressing, but I think you don’t have a visceral grasp of the enormity of the slush pile.

That gatekeeping function is a social good, in my opinion.