Writers, alignments and Publishing Houses

[Layna]

This is just something I've been mulling over after a roleplay yesterday...

It's actually only just struck me (yeah, I'm slow) that bards and other writers seem to be published in the publishing house located in the city that most reflects their alignment. Evil writers, for example, get published in the Keep and Westgate, whereas goodly writers might find their works in Berdusk or Silverymoon...

While I have no complaints about the publishing system (it's fab, and the imms behind it have been more than patient with my semi-regular boneheaded moments... <_<) I was wondering whether this was necessarily the best system and what other people thought?

As a bard I'd hate to think I was limiting my readership, cause let's face it - the Keep's not really a tourist destination and plenty of goods won't want to go trekking out there - especially not if they are morally opposed to everything the place stands for, and especially 'only' for books. Same can be said for the other side of the coin - evils can't even get into Silverymoon so the books there are essentially 'off limits' unless you can con/persuade someone else to buy books there for you. I know the library (which is, by the way, a fantabulous initiative that I could kiss its wonderful organiser(s) for) goes some way to address this.

But my second point is this: The upshot of the roleplay was basically 'those people published in the Keep are evil'. Which is true - but for those of us who don't want to be overt about their alignment it's a bit of a give-away if your work frequently and exclusively turns up in the Keep. I was wondering if perhaps those books that appear in cities that strongly hint at the alignment of their writer - the Keep, Silverymoon - could also be put in another, more neutrally percieved city?

I appreciate this would hardly be a high priority for our Imms, and that perhaps I'm just over-analyzing things (I have a wont to do that) but I wanted to throw the idea out there and see what people thought.

[Oghma]

You could probably specify in your email to publications where you think your book would best be sold. In certain instances some bards will sell them out of their own shops (Older player bards for example). It really depends on where they fit, such as religiously inclined books to to books about a certain fk race or region. It should really be not that difficult requesting a region for a publication, though you should still have to find out where the book is being sold icly.