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!
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