Publishers, Amazon Not to Blame for Author Poverty Wages

Rasenberger claimed that "unless writers share more equitably the profits their publishers see, we'll stop seeing the quality of work the industry was built on." What quality is she talking about? My impression is that the quality of writing has gone down and down and down over the decades. As the member of a small press interested in publishing literary fiction, I applaud this development. Why? Because the reason we've been able to find, introduce, and publish so many award-winning novelists is because the conglomerate publishers increasingly reject them. Dumbing down artistic merit in favor of wider sales works if the goal is making money. But if one's passion is to find and introduce artful writers, this strategy doesn't work. Amy Schumer is not Mark Twain, though both are humorists, and James Paterson is not Elmore Leonard. I fault neither Patterson nor Schumer for their financial success any more than I would fault the winner of a million-dollar lottery. Patterson's name on a book guarantees high sales, even if his "coauthors" do all the work, and many people find Schumer irresistible.