Changing characters in the 3RD person?

Something I often see is three asterisks like:

...blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah

***

blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah...

Usually the asterisks are centered in the page. Sometimes other symbols appear including five-pointed stars.
David Brin's Startide Rising not only uses chapter change, but each chapter's point of view is from one character. The name of this character is put where you'd expect the chapter title is (none of the chapters in Startide Rising have titles, just numbers).

The book is great, though I wouldn't be one to say if Brin's approach to point of view shifts in this story is a good idea to incorporate into a new author's story. By the time Brin wrote Startide Rising, he was already an established author, so something like this wouldn't even matter, if only for the most part.

 

I'm confused. This suggests that the _reader_--since it's the reader and his dollars that will determine whether self-publishing succeeds or not--is going to object to the fact that the author is required to put in a # sign for a scene change? Or, alternatively, that authors will be so infuriated by the requirement for that # sign that they'll boycott professional publishers and insist on self-publishing, whether the readers are buying self-published books or not?

I can't imagine that either of those are what you're saying, but what are you saying?

ChickenFreak

 

It's not any of those directly. 1. Readers don't care how a book is published. If it interests them and they know about it, they'll buy it. A new author is a new author. The published author may still have the promotional benefits, but that's gonna change eventually, I think. 2. The "#" is less the issue and more kind of the joke of the idea of an "industry standard." I think that will be self-destructive to the industry, in time. (Likely in the same way that record labels are kind of shooting themselves in the foot.) I think that the very ideas and processes of this industry will be what eventually makes self-publishing succeed. As I said before, it isn't there yet. So right now, if you want to be successful, you gotta play ball with the industry. I just feel that those days are limited simply because authors will eventually see a more efficient way to share their work than playing ball. (Self-publishing too will evolve.) I think even the e-book could be a huge factor. It's merely observing the subtle changes I see that indicate that the picture is shifting.