the Guardian: why do we discount indie publishers?
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/06/why_writers_cant_go_it_alone.html
While I agree with this article -- that indie (or self-published) books get shorter shrift and far less cred than indie films and indie music -- I'm surprised that neither the author nor his commenters mentioned one pretty obvious difference: their potential to sell, period. Everyone goes to the movies, and everyone listens to music, and if an indie film or album is a break-out hit, it's likely that a whole hell of a lot of people will pay to see it or listen to it. But when you look at even a "best-selling" book, how many people are really reading it?
I hate this, of course, and I hate that this leads to what the entry and comments do discuss -- how scared and snobby and tied to big houses we wind up being. Unlike music and film, the book (and I mean here the book read for pleasure) has to justify its existence; publishing fiction itself, even at big houses, seems like an "indie" pursuit.
While I agree with this article -- that indie (or self-published) books get shorter shrift and far less cred than indie films and indie music -- I'm surprised that neither the author nor his commenters mentioned one pretty obvious difference: their potential to sell, period. Everyone goes to the movies, and everyone listens to music, and if an indie film or album is a break-out hit, it's likely that a whole hell of a lot of people will pay to see it or listen to it. But when you look at even a "best-selling" book, how many people are really reading it?
I hate this, of course, and I hate that this leads to what the entry and comments do discuss -- how scared and snobby and tied to big houses we wind up being. Unlike music and film, the book (and I mean here the book read for pleasure) has to justify its existence; publishing fiction itself, even at big houses, seems like an "indie" pursuit.