No more subjective than the winner of the World Series. There are successful books and unsuccessful ones.
No, the World Series has a definite winner and a definite loser. Art is subjective.
I feel like you're missing the point. You said there's no point listening to industry professionals. I said there was. You said professionals shouldn't care if a writer is famous or not. I pointed out famous writes have fans, and somehow here we are. King wants to shop a book, it will be snapped up immediately, because it will sell, regardless of what you think of it.
First, I didn't say professional opinions shouldn't be listened to at all. I am just saying that they are not the be all, end all. They are about money first, art a distant second. I am about art first. And even professionals will disagree.
I don't know who's defining "authentic piece of art" here but nor do I know how we got to discussing authentic pieces of art from discussing the publishing business.
Publishing is a business, writing is an art. The two are connected.
Well, similarly to how someone posted a thread calling sports art, you can feel writing is. I think it's a job. I like it when people pay me to work, thanks.
And people who are not bound by NYC still get paid, just as musicians get paid even if they are indie.
Sports has nothing to do with writing. Music is a much better comparison. The big publishing houses are looking for the next Kesha to score them a hit. Kesha (or "Ke$ha") had a hit with that GOD AWFUL "Tick tock" song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP6XpLQM2Cs
Are you really going to argue that's a song that's a "piece of art"?
Know what made the artist money, but WASN'T a big hit? The Dutch band The Gathering's cover of the Dead Can Dance classic "In Power we Trust the Love Advocated":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VBc4OajRUM
If I had a choice if making a few million being the literary equivalent of Kesha, or just getting by being the literary equivalent of The Gathering, which would I chose?
That's entirely your prerogative, but there's no need to frame it that way, what with the beg and plead crap. Publishing is a business. There's nothing wrong with that. Some of us choose to engage in that business on the trade side. If you prefer to self-publish, good for you. No one here is denigrating that choice, so why denigrate someone else's?
I'm not. I'm just against the whole corporate publishing business that is basically at war with art.
By that standard, Twilight is a good novel.
To some it may be, but certainly not me. It was extremely commercial and I am pretty much against commercial novels.
I'm pretty "punk rock" about the whole literary thing. Just as the punks realized that anyone who could master three cords could start a band and later, the industrial musicians realized they didn't need to learn ANY cords to start a band but just needed to put sounds together in such a way that would be pleasing to a given number of people, authors are realizing they don't necessarily have to follow any corporate model for commercial fiction.
Just as Black Flag, KMFDM and Fields of the Nephilim made some money while being groundbreaking innovators who didn't want or need the approval of the corporate music world, there are plenty of new, groundbreaking authors who follow a similar punk ethic and are making some money (but not tons) And just as every musician sooner or later has to either embrace some piece of being punk and say "I'm going to do what my art what I want to create art, boardroom be damned!" or give in to the big wigs, sooner or later every authors is going to have to either give in to New York or stand their ground and say "I'm making art."
It is not a hard "yes or no" answer, but the dynamic does exist in every artist, from JK Rowling to an indie-horror author like myself.
