Book packaging: influencers driving fiction genre publishing trend [Video]

Rosemary Sorensen examines the practice of book packaging – where teams of editors, influencers and writers write books on demand – and, posits the silencing of cultural and literary criticism is causing a dangerous lack of accountability in cultural production.

 WHEN LITERARY CRITICISM was still a thing, when there was an ecology of publishing that – despite the pouting of populist genre writers – worked to maintain the appreciation of quality writing, this description of a romantasy (romance/fantasy) novel would have set off alarm bells:

‘When Ruby feels the eyes of a stranger in the woods, she knows she should be scared, that she should run away, but she can’t. Instead, she feels a thrill, feels drawn to this stranger who follows her in the woods. Yearns for his eyes on her every night as she walks home, hoping to hear the crunch of leaves under his feet that signals he’s there.’

Apparently, A Curse of Blood and Wolves…