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The continuing woes of the publishing industry have been chronicled on a continuing basis in The New York Times, which contains the best reporting available on the decline of book sales and the search for new authors who will strike a chord with intelligent readers.
There seem to be no Hemingways, Faulkners or James Joyces extant in today's market. While the great unwashed public buys the books of Stephen King and John Grisham in bulk, no one has found a new writer who will compete with the masters of recent generations.
In an article published Oct. 22, Times reporter Martin Arnold reports that "the sizzle is that there is a crisis in book publishing yet again, that indeed the very survival of literature is at risk." He adds that publishing industry analysts believe the problem is not the advance of the mega book stores that drive out the independent booksellers, but rather "the shortage of talent and flair in the industry, a lack of good editors and editor-publishers of a certain age to produce books people want to read . . . Publishing is a gamble, they say, and too often the bookstore shelves are stacked with the unwanted and the unreadable."
Readers need to help in the search for new writers worthy of publication. One way is to examine the writings increasingly available on the many web pages devoted to literature. It is here where worthy young voices are beginning to make themselves heard. Publishers would do well to set their search engines on the Internet and seek out the new talent that shows promise and needs encouragement.
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