Flexibility and Author Attention Corporate buyouts are one of the trends that Declan Spring of New Directions believes have most affected independent publishing. Many in the industry worry that mergers dominating trade headlines will eventually homogenize published work, leaving literary publishing in the past. But not all of the effects are so grim. Spring believes that the smaller size of independents makes them more agile in the marketplace. Flexibility allows them to respond better to opportunities by making quick decisions, and then implementing the ideas that will help them flourish.
Staff is smaller, and there are more ways to cut costs and get grants.
Oakes added that independent publishers and their editors are more likely to spend time with your book than editors at corporate houses. Our books would take a place of pride among the books published today. Editors at independent presses tend to shape the books more than at larger houses. There, the agents are doing it. Whether or not you believe conglomerates affect the number of good books published, what we've seen is a marginalization of good books, presses, and editors.