'It's Just a Different Business Than the Seventies,' He Said.

Mister king said that when he started in the publishing business in the mid 19 seventies, there were hundreds of imprints. He shopped his work around without an agent. The number of publishers has since dwindled as competing businesses have subsumed or collapsed. With fewer imprints competing for business, advances have slowly dwindled,. particularly for writers without a track record of sales.