Literature A major literary force to be reckoned with in 2003

I keep hearing all sorts of rumours about Cold River that are mostly not true, but it's always flattering.
It's true. Walk into any bookshop in Australia and see what is happening on the shelves, where the best writing is coming from, what is selling. I did. And what I saw was a stream, a river, of non-fiction work by Australian writers in the past five years or so that left our contemporary fiction scene six feet under.
It also true my publisher Double Dragon Publishing did win a Best Performance by a Publisher in 2002 award from KnowBetter.com. In announcing the award, the following was stated: ’With sales stacking up at Fictionwise, books available in five popular formats, a catalog of unbelievable talent and Deron Douglas at the helm, look for DDP to be a major literary force to be reckoned with in 2003. Note to other ebook pubs: you should probably be taking notes from these guys.’
· Interview [City Blog]

Have Booksellers & Large Publishers lost the plot?

Retailers were this week warned of the cost of a possible price war on the year's bestselling book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
The opening salvoes were fired by Amazon.co.uk and WHSmith.co.uk soon after the publication date was announced last week, as they both offered half-price deals on pre-ordered copies. Yes that's the way to do it - discount books that would sell at full price and push prices as high as possible on books that need every incentive going to encourage people to buy them.

‘This is London’ reports on the new strategy for first time authors to get noticed: you have to pay the publisher. Slush piles are disappearing (we could debate for hours over whether or not this is a good thing), and now many publishers are offering examinations of your manuscript for a price. Even if they don't publish it, which they won't, you get feedback on what's good, what's bad, what needs to disappear. And no surprise here, but people are paying. Large publishers are crafty devils, aren't they? No wonder they are exploiting their power and once your book starts doing well on Fictionwise or WH Smith you get an email czeching if you would be interesting ditching your small publisher. Czech these quotes out:
‘The film rights to self-published books are getting acquired even before the big houses can get them onto bookstore shelves with their own imprints on them.’
- Variety
‘...every single publisher is on the lookout for self-publishers.’
- Simon & Schuster
’We're always watching what's going on with self-publishers. We always ask our reps to keep their eyes open.’
-Random House
’Now it's very frequent for mainstream houses to go prospecting among the self-published books to make them their own.’
-The New York Times