[HN Gopher] The Day NY Publishing Lost Its Soul
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       The Day NY Publishing Lost Its Soul
        
       Author : wallflower
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2026-03-07 21:10 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.honest-broker.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.honest-broker.com)
        
       | kurthr wrote:
       | I'll offer a hopeful rejoinder. Perhaps, when AISlop generates
       | enough of the same old story "guaranteed" hits for the mass
       | market (and book covers to go with same), the editors will switch
       | back to something that is _novel_ and unlikely to be generated.
       | 
       | Think about what happens when you feed the first few books of a
       | series into long context llm, along with their audience
       | interests, pitch lines, plot summaries and character guides. When
       | each element is multi-shot rather than zero-shot.
        
       | raldi wrote:
       | The clickbait title refers to a day in fall 1995 when a Random
       | House editor was told by his boss that the business could no
       | longer afford to publish modestly-selling books (~10,000-40,000
       | copies), marking the moment when corporate scale killed the old
       | risk-taking culture of publishing.
        
       | comrade1234 wrote:
       | Interesting history but what's going on now is so crazy as a
       | reader. Amazon kindle publishes 7500 new books daily. There's no
       | longer gatekeepers like in the article.
       | 
       | About two years ago I was searching for a new sci-fi book to read
       | - I routinely rotate genres. I did my research in goodreads and
       | started reading a trilogy that was highly rated. Holy crap it was
       | so bad a quit about halfway through the second book. I went back
       | to goodreads and the rating since my last visit had dropped
       | drastically. A bot campaign or something fooled me, I guess.
       | 
       | I've since just started reading older stuff, before the 2000s.
       | I'd try to find a gatekeeper to filter newer stuff for me but
       | everything seems corrupt - even the Hugo awards gets scammed by
       | influence campaigns.
        
         | pavel_lishin wrote:
         | > _I 'd try to find a gatekeeper to filter newer stuff for me
         | but everything seems corrupt_
         | 
         | Word of mouth is the best way to do this, among friends who
         | read similar things to you.
         | 
         | Even if you're recommended something you end up not liking,
         | it's not because they're malicious, their tastes are just not
         | the same as yours - and after awhile, you learn to adapt.
         | Friend A recommends a space opera? Great, you have very similar
         | tastes. They recommend a horror novel? Eh, you know that what
         | they consider to be good horror isn't what you do, so you skip
         | that one.
        
       | BrenBarn wrote:
       | This is not specific to publishing. The diagram tells the story:
       | it's consolidation. Consolidation is bad. Giant companies are
       | bad. In publishing as in other domains.
        
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       (page generated 2026-03-07 23:00 UTC)