The death of award-winning novelist Nelle Harper Lee in February inspired a deluge of obituaries, essays, musings and meditations. Fans flooded social media with tributes, publishers announced new editions of her work and Lee was glowingly compared to everyone from Maya Angelou to Justin Bieber. Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird has influenced multiple generations and the outpouring of grief is understandable. It is, however, slightly surreal to see people rush to pay tribute to Lee while the very structures that made it possible for Mockingbird to be published are disappearing.
The last decade has seen Western publishing industries become increasingly conservative. Falling book sales, the decline of independent bookstores, Amazon’s domination of the book market and ebook piracy have all contributed to making publishers more risk averse. This new conservatism has impacted on two areas that are vital for emerging writers and without which Lee would probably never have been published: financial and editorial support.
