Saturday 6 August 2011

The Myth of Self-Publishing by Adrian Zackheim

Just a couple of comments I want to make about this article (link below):

"self-publishing is not an easy road" - well - neither is trad publishing - all that waiting as your life speeds by - all those printed off mss and enormous postage costs to those who don't give a monkey's about the trees - all those requests for more of your work only to receive NO ANSWER AT ALL, EVER - (how rude can you be?) - all the publicity you're expected to do - the library appearances, shop appearances, embarrassing signings in book shops, on and on - that's not easy either. Is it?

"it’s more valuable than ever to have experts curate the works that are really worthy of a reader’s attention" - and yet, mistakes are still found in every publication - not just typos, but awful things like the same words 17 times in a three-line para. I agree that some books are thrown up rather too quickly before enough scrutiny has taken place - but I also find that reading the first page from a FREE sample will pretty soon decide the reader whether or not they want to work through such a work - much better that than buying the book only to find out afterwards that the prose is full of cliche etc.

I don't understand why it's always either/or anyway. Sometimes I read from my Kindle; sometimes I read from a book. I'm not going to despise either because I have the other. What a peculiar idea. Why does that idea have to reach out to self-pub and trad pub - they must both still have a place. Mustn't they?

I have known many authors who fell ".........for the myth of.........." trad publishing who ended up "...........relegated to the periphery of the book world." Their books didn't make money and then fell out print. They are now getting a new lease of life thanks to the epub revolution Yay!


6 comments:

  1. You make some very good points. Funny how people will insist on seeing things in terms of black and white and no shades of grey.

    And great idea for a blog, btw. I shall be recommending it.

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  2. Thank you very much! Do come and comment whenever you feel like it. There'll be plenty to comment about in the coming upheaval.

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  3. I read this article and took away the opinion that the writer was more worried about the mis-selling of ebook publishing than of creating a polarisation of the publishing industry.

    It is legitimate to be concerned that millions of writers will put their books online -- they might even pay for it -- and make no sales whatsoever. Likewise, it is also legit to worry about trad authors that made nothing because their hopes were too high, too.

    I think the message is "Open your eyes" and do your research.

    Unfortunately, if you're good at writing, you may well not be very good at publicity, promotion, bookcovers, networking, blogging, and all those other new disciplines you seem to need to be successful as an Independent Author.

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  4. Love the blog, Sue. And heartily agree about the mistakes and typos in self-published books. Until writers understand that errors throw readers out of the story the ebook industry for indies is going to struggle. A good proofreader and copy editor is vital. Looking forward to reading your book.

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  5. Opening your eyes and doing your research are always good things to do. Hopefully bringing together articles full of ideas on this blog will help. And maybe even clarify things as we go along.

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  6. I'm collecting ideas about self-editing for a post on this blog, Kit. Thank you for your input.

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