Too lopsided. The playing field isn't level. Too much elitism and bureaucracy, rejection and aristocracy. Perhaps even oligarchy. The discrepancy between collective global literary talent and published global literary talent is far too significant, causing far too many deserving writers and wordsmiths in general far too much disappointment and far too little satisfaction. Is the publishing world at this time comparable to the music world before Napster and iTunes, or the video world before YouTube and Netflix? Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, what's most wrong with this world today is the inequality...plain and simple. And this inequality is unjust and unnecessary.

When you're in you're but that's the problem, getting in. And not only that but it's pop fiction, contemporary stuff. The kind of books that have select market and go by in a snap. Sure there's the greats but it seems that anyone can have the easy way out and self publish.

I'm not saying however that self publishing is bad, but criticism is good. And so are connections.

Or of course you could always become a Twilight/Hunger games kind of person and write for a market.

The most serious problem is that so many writers are more anxious to publish than they are to write the best prose possible. That anyone with an Internet connection can publish anything permits the flood of babble on Facebook, blogs and self-published books and essays. What is needed, and is just beginning to emerge, is a critical filter, sites where intelligent, thoughtful critics offer clues as to what is worth reading — and, of course, a readership savvy enough to tell the difference.

The inexorable commodification of literature has undercut the ways writers and publishers used to work. That's not a defense of the old ways, but it should raise questions about the notion that somehow money (consumable quantity) can reflect literature's ultimate value (lasting quality). In the past, editors published popular best-selling writers to feed the writers of great books. In this new Gilded Age, the few writers who've sold books in large quantities, the .01% at the top, will make the money, and those writing the great books may always remain in danger of being hungry as they feed the world.

Cost shifting. Publishers used to cover permission fees. Now authors must do so. Publishers used to edit, and all an author needed to do was provide a fairly clean typescript. Now they want everything camera-ready in PDF format with all the major editing already done . . . by the author. Publishers used to promote books. Now authors have to promote their own, and in many cases supply a promotion plan along with the manuscript in order to even be considered for publication. And we have no recourse except self- or online publishing.