(no subject)
Number of people trying to talk me into starting my own ebook publishing company: 3
Number of people trying to talk me out of it: 1 (me)
I was complaining to Mr. Bamboo about various things I dislike about current ebook publishers and the publishing industry and formatting and all sorts of other things, and I ended it with the extremely sarcastic, "I should just start harness the awesome of all of my friends and start my own damn publishing company, huh?" And rather than chortling, which is what I expected, Mr. Bamboo said, "Sure." Not sarcastic at all.
I rolled my eyes but he brought it up a couple times himself after that. (Once, when I was poking fun at the giant bags of sugar at Costco and saying it was good they were there for when I finally gave up on everything and decided to start a bakery.)
I related this story to a couple of friends who, I'll give you, are biased, and they both said, "DOOOOOOO IIIIIIIIIIT."
There's a lot of reasons not to, like the initial money outlay (but I could fix that with Kickstarter), the fact that I've forgotten everything I know about contract law (but I could fix that with an upcoming workshop), the fact that I don't know jackshit about running a business (that, I can't easily fix), that I'd have to pray that people are nice enough to let me try to organize and sell a thing (some might be, heh), and last but not least, what in hell would I have to offer that's better/different/more interesting than anyone else, especially in this age of easy-as-fuck self-publishing (copy editing, decent covers if I had my choice, trigger warnings available on the website, and better-formatted documents--but how is that really new/different/novel? also, am i really egotistical enough to think 'i can do better'? well, yes).
There really are no reasons to do so. It's not like I'd make any money from it.
Nonetheless.
Number of people trying to talk me out of it: 1 (me)
I was complaining to Mr. Bamboo about various things I dislike about current ebook publishers and the publishing industry and formatting and all sorts of other things, and I ended it with the extremely sarcastic, "I should just start harness the awesome of all of my friends and start my own damn publishing company, huh?" And rather than chortling, which is what I expected, Mr. Bamboo said, "Sure." Not sarcastic at all.
I rolled my eyes but he brought it up a couple times himself after that. (Once, when I was poking fun at the giant bags of sugar at Costco and saying it was good they were there for when I finally gave up on everything and decided to start a bakery.)
I related this story to a couple of friends who, I'll give you, are biased, and they both said, "DOOOOOOO IIIIIIIIIIT."
There's a lot of reasons not to, like the initial money outlay (but I could fix that with Kickstarter), the fact that I've forgotten everything I know about contract law (but I could fix that with an upcoming workshop), the fact that I don't know jackshit about running a business (that, I can't easily fix), that I'd have to pray that people are nice enough to let me try to organize and sell a thing (some might be, heh), and last but not least, what in hell would I have to offer that's better/different/more interesting than anyone else, especially in this age of easy-as-fuck self-publishing (copy editing, decent covers if I had my choice, trigger warnings available on the website, and better-formatted documents--but how is that really new/different/novel? also, am i really egotistical enough to think 'i can do better'? well, yes).
There really are no reasons to do so. It's not like I'd make any money from it.
Nonetheless.