The “death” of publishing has been predicted for years, of course, but Lawrence Osborne at Forbes.com has an interesting article about why he feels publishing is currently in trouble. In it, he makes a point that we here at Red Planet have tried to drive home for a while. Namely, that over the last decade or two, the major publishing houses have moved to a “blockbuster” business model that mimics Hollywood.

What do I mean by that? Well, rather than paying a reasonable rate for quality writing that they then carefully market, the big houses now buy up everything but the kitchen sink. They pay most writers peanuts and do next to no marketing on the off-chance that one or two properties will “hit it big,” banking on a few hits to cover the cost of everything. A few “marqee” writers, on the other hand, get paid vast sums of money, and the company’s whole marketing budget goes into propping up the latest dumbed-down thriller.

Unsurprisingly, this model isn’t working well. You can read Osborne’s piece for more information, but suffice to say that here at Red Planet, we continue to champion a new model, one in which the author has a greater stake in, more control over, and more to gain than in the “Hollywood” model.

And the revolution continues.