The simple truth is that the biggest enemy of ALL authors -- except, possibly, J.K. Rowling -- is that people haven't heard of them. I'm quite sure that there's several thousands, maybe several tens of thousands, of people out there who would buy Digital Knight in a flash... if they knew it existed and had any idea what it was about.
But publicity is EXPENSIVE. At least, the standard kind is. And no publisher on EARTH can afford to give every single book -- especially from lesser-known authors -- the kind of publicity blitz that it needs to even vaguely approach saturation of the market (and even if they did, the constant blare of publicity would desensitize people to the point that it wouldn't work).
I think the argument is that, by taking advantage of free publicity, you are DE-VALUING the publicity that more famous authors have to pay for. You're robbing Rowling blind!!!! Or something...
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But publicity is EXPENSIVE. At least, the standard kind is. And no publisher on EARTH can afford to give every single book -- especially from lesser-known authors -- the kind of publicity blitz that it needs to even vaguely approach saturation of the market (and even if they did, the constant blare of publicity would desensitize people to the point that it wouldn't work).
I think the argument is that, by taking advantage of free publicity, you are DE-VALUING the publicity that more famous authors have to pay for. You're robbing Rowling blind!!!! Or something...