{"id":9423,"date":"2026-10-01T07:11:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T07:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/josephrauch.com\/therauchreview\/?p=9423"},"modified":"2026-10-01T07:11:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T07:11:14","slug":"marketability-in-publishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/josephrauch.com\/therauchreview\/articles\/marketability-in-publishing\/","title":{"rendered":"Has the Publishing Industry Become Too Obsessed With Marketability?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Promises of romances featuring dragons, wit and the slow burn are available in abundance at any bookstore, one shelf after the next. There is nothing accidental about this selection, for it speaks to the nature of an industry built on the certainty of previous successes.<\/p>\n

It is not an issue of whether the commercial aspects have a place in publishing; indeed, they always have. It is whether the commercial aspects have so dominated the industry as to squeeze out originality.<\/p>\n

Why Marketability Matters to Publishers<\/h2>\n

Producing books costs a lot before they even get on shelves. Editing, printing, distribution and marketing are all activities that entail costs without guarantees of any returns. The publisher considers sales estimates, popularity of genres and target audience in advance when making their decision. A book whose potential target audience is obvious to spot is easier to allocate funds for than the other one.<\/p>\n

But this dynamic does not imply that publishers no longer care about quality. Marketability is what will keep a publisher in business regardless of how much risk they take in publishing such books. That’s just the nature of business. Income from guaranteed bestsellers normally funds other elements of the publisher’s catalogue:<\/p>\n