It’s no secret that the world of traditional book publishing is an elite place, even by the most progressive of standards. Although you might not see governments talking about Microsoft-type anti-competitive lawsuits against NYC publishers; or turn on your TV to watch newsreels of G20 anarchists rioting with police and trashing the glass windows of big commercial publishers (like what is done to Macdonalds and other corporate conglomerates that are perceived to have too much control) a common thread that is often voiced between many independent, self published authors is that unless you’re a national celebrity, been through an ivy-league school or have wealthy contacts, getting a big publisher or major agent to look at your work with a serious eye, is nigh on impossible.

Most of the ‘commentators’ on the internet who attack self publishing companies, and criticize authors who choose to pay to publish, while complaining at the same time about the difficulties of finding a publisher, are actually helping to support the very same old, elite and tightly controlled industry that is stopping them, and the many good authors across America, who after many dedicated years of trying still can’t get a publisher. Books is an industry where all of six companies control every bestseller list in the country, and alone decide what goes and stays on all the shelves at bookstores nationwide, even if it is celebrity drivel.

Some watchers believe this kind of control limits intellectual output to a small, relatively narrow political pool; when the world is getting bigger and more complicated by the day; yet the number of traditionally distributed new voices that you can find on a bookshelf is declining. This isn’t to say that the big publishers don’t publish great books, just that there are many very talented authors out there who are continually shut out and we at Schiel & Denver recognize this, and seek through our international publishing infrastructure to give a voice to independent talent.

The economic reality of this recession, perhaps spurred on by the exponentially growing marketshare of Amazon.com and the cultural change towards ebooks and away from printed media, is necessarily going to change the author-publisher interface, but so far, not clearly in favor of independent authors. A few weeks ago, under heading 11 in the FAQ lists of Penguin UK, the book publisher began to accept unsolicited manuscript submissions, by email.

To be exact, the Penguin website writes:

“People frequently ask us how to go about getting published … for a limited three-month period from the beginning of August until the end of October 2010, we will be inviting submissions to be sent in electronically to the following address: submissions@uk.penguingroup.com.”

That’s unprecedented, and nearly unheard of for a big publisher (or any of it’s imprints) to accept direct submissions from independent authors and it suggests that the recession might also be having another effect – causing some major publishers to follow Macmillan New Writing, and look for ways around having to pay agents’ and their advances. Whatever else is said, agents’ have always been a bone of contention for publishers, because the contractual presence of an agent obviously has a negative effect on publishers’ balance sheets.

About 3 out of 5 traditionally published books don’t even earn out the advance, let alone make money, so it will be interesting to see if Penguin’s new ‘trial’ submissions policy might be here to stay and whether their elite cousins will follow suit. If anything the recent dispute between the Andrew Wylie literary agency, and Random House, who have refused to work with the agent worldwide after it forged a controversial rights deal with Amazon, adds weight to the idea that the role of agents might be about to undergo drastic change. Afterall, agents will always need publishers, but not vice-versa.

Mirroring the recent changes that are taking place in other parts of the book world – i.e. the Riggio Family at Barnes & Noble; the success of Amazon’s Encore imprint (and the continued march of Amazon generally), together with the changes that the Google Book Settlement is bringing, mean that while it’s unlikely that companies as powerful and innovative as big commercial publishers will ever be under threat of becoming obsolete, a possibility that does exist as the traditional publishing community ruthlessly restructures to absorb this recession, is that literary agents might get eliminated.