July 9, 2015. The Province
Are big Canadian publishing houses solely concerned with commercial success now? Or is there still room for culture?
Posted by: Peter Darbyshire
What price do you put on culture?
That’s the question Canadian writers and publishing professionals have been asking in the wake of comments by Brad Martin, the head of Penguin Random House Canada.
“I’m not interested in a book that is going to generate less than $100,000 in revenue unless the editor or publisher has a compelling vision for the book and/or the author,” Martin told The Globe and Mail’s Mark Medley in a recent column about the merger of Penguin and Random House — a seismic shift in the publishing landscape.
The merger has been followed closely by nervous writers and agents, who fear it will result in less competition among publishers and thus lower advances. Martin’s comments only increased the anxiety level among the literati, who have been spreading the story on social media and trying to interpret what it means. Does it signal a shift toward more commercial, mainstream fiction at the expense of developing and nurturing Canadian literary talent? The Province reached out to a number of Canadian writers, publishers and agents to get their perspective on things
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“I’m not interested in a book that is going to generate less than $100,000 in revenue unless the editor or publisher has a compelling vision for the book and/or the author,” Martin told The Globe and Mail’s Mark Medley in a recent column about the merger of Penguin and Random House — a seismic shift in the publishing landscape.
The merger has been followed closely by nervous writers and agents, who fear it will result in less competition among publishers and thus lower advances. Martin’s comments only increased the anxiety level among the literati, who have been spreading the story on social media and trying to interpret what it means. Does it signal a shift toward more commercial, mainstream fiction at the expense of developing and nurturing Canadian literary talent? The Province reached out to a number of Canadian writers, publishers and agents to get their perspective on things
More
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