This is freakish. Are they still going to publish her first book? (theoretically the book should still be no better nor worse than they thought it was when they bought it???)
In music artists are so embarassed about top 10 lists that a jazz artist I like had to say he was proud of being chosen for a NYT list, although he also celebrated everyone who put out music this past year. He said it's hard to be an artist, and that is definitely true.
To the extent that publishing is about numbers maybe it has been a lot less about art for a while now.
For me (and just about me alone among people I know), books (vs magazines) are still all about the hard copy, unlike music where I have become satisfied that cd quality downloads are actually better than cds (no clutter). Of course I have had 35 years of conditioning to cd art/liner notes being worse than what we used to get with vinyl.
She lost her book deal. You make a great point that the novel they bought is no better or worse for the author's behavior, but a lot of book publishing contracts now have behavior clauses in them. I do wonder how, say, a Hemingway or Bukowski would fare under such a system. Though, in Del Rey's defense, the community of science fiction readers does care about these things and likely would have boycotted this novel, no matter its literary merits. So, Del Rey saved itself money and heartache by stopping the process before spending too much on publishing and promotion. Thanks for your insights about the music industry!
This is freakish. Are they still going to publish her first book? (theoretically the book should still be no better nor worse than they thought it was when they bought it???)
In music artists are so embarassed about top 10 lists that a jazz artist I like had to say he was proud of being chosen for a NYT list, although he also celebrated everyone who put out music this past year. He said it's hard to be an artist, and that is definitely true.
To the extent that publishing is about numbers maybe it has been a lot less about art for a while now.
For me (and just about me alone among people I know), books (vs magazines) are still all about the hard copy, unlike music where I have become satisfied that cd quality downloads are actually better than cds (no clutter). Of course I have had 35 years of conditioning to cd art/liner notes being worse than what we used to get with vinyl.
She lost her book deal. You make a great point that the novel they bought is no better or worse for the author's behavior, but a lot of book publishing contracts now have behavior clauses in them. I do wonder how, say, a Hemingway or Bukowski would fare under such a system. Though, in Del Rey's defense, the community of science fiction readers does care about these things and likely would have boycotted this novel, no matter its literary merits. So, Del Rey saved itself money and heartache by stopping the process before spending too much on publishing and promotion. Thanks for your insights about the music industry!