Will Online Printing Services Overwhelm Publishers?

With Amazon wanting to enter the publishing fray, is literary culture on the verge of being monopolized? Well, yes and no. On one hand it's pretty important that publishing houses remain for independent writers who need the one on one guidance to develop and grow into mature artists. On the other, if Amazon bought out all the online printing services and took away business from all traditional publishing houses, they would have a chokehold on the entire industry.

Amazon could easily become a faceless publishing house that doesn't foster the creativity traditional publishing houses do. Take the editing process, for example. A good editor works with the author and the agent to craft the existing story into one that can reach a broad audience, and is refined and finalized in a way the author may have trouble achieving on his own.

Online printing services are great for writers who may never have had the chance to find their voice. Those who have been rejected by large publishing houses are allowed the freedom to publish for an audience that may still be interested in their work, albeit an audience to which the traditional publishing house does not think is "marketable." And with the market as heavily saturated as it is today with writers and poets, that allows for many of these writers, who are as talented as the industry bigwigs, to show their stuff. The result is that these writers can self-publish and make money off their work in a way that wasn't viable ten or fifteen years ago.

Many writers know the tricks, such as immersing the reader in their characters minds by delivering thick casual details, retrospective memories that bunch and stick together and which are conjured by one simple moment, as well as moving the story along by offering summaries with pertinent details. Their characters are real and emotional and deep. Their plots are catchy and fast-paced. But there isn't enough room for eight or nine books on the shelves. Traditional publishers can only publish three or four a season.

The fact is, a balance is necessary. The diversity online printing services offer can compete with the more marketable traditional fields offered by literary presses as well as allow more writers to reach a wider audience. Meanwhile, traditional publishing houses offer one on one guidance for writers who need strong edits and marketing assistance. Depending on what one's aspirations are, both routes are legitimate ways to make a career as a writer. Following either route at different points in one's career is also an option.

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