New Publishing Trend – Book Consortium?

Backword Books is a new collaborative effort of seven authors who write what is generally described as ‘literary fiction.’ Having failed to interest the typical Big Publishing Houses, who as we all know are busy looking for the next J.K. Rowling or Stephen King (not that I’m slagging on their books, just the fact that if you can’t bring in that kind of revenue they’re, shall we say, less than interested) and not willing to take any kind of risks.

Named to give focus on old-fashioned values in quality writing, Backword Books brings together the best literary writers that Baum and a small group discovered. The seven writers use new digital printing technology to publish titles under their own imprints.

 After Baum and four other authors landed in Entertainment Weekly in 2006 for their well-regarded print-on-demand (POD) books, he saw the gap in what traditional publishers were doing and what could be done. He created a new forum, the website Self-Publishing Review, devoted to the emerging potential as well as to the pitfalls of self-publishing.

According to the article, the authors all hired editors and book designers. This will hopefully put them a step above the stereotypical self-published book. I’m wondering if this is going to be the wave of the future, as what we tend to think of as ‘traditional’ publishers take on fewer and fewer books. Will it fall to the writers to do everything? I’ve been whining about having to do the marketing, but I may have a lot more to worry about.

You can read the rest of the article here, and see a list of the authors involved as well as links to their sites and books.