Self-publishing, vanity presses, small presses, print-on-demand. AND SO ON.
So here's the thing: the traditional novel publishing industry is a damn mess. It's increasingly difficult to break into because it's a speculative industry and it's so expensive that no one wants to take a risk. There are a lot of copy cat plots - rashes of vampire novels when there's a hit vampire novel, for example.
So it isn't like I'm all OUR CURRENT MODEL WORKS LEAVE IT ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE. It's creaking along and I'm not saying print is dead by any means but the industry is bleeding pretty heavily.
But when I'm linked to stuff like Smash Words, which operates on a pure self-publishing model... I am faced with an entirely new set of issues.
Now, I'm 100% positive that there are some fan-fucking-fastic undiscovered writers out there. Writers who can't break into the mainstream publishing industry because it isn't fair and it isn't risk-taking and so on. There are, I am just as positive, some truly astonishingly great self-published novels. After all, there's a lot of stuff published by big name imprints that is utter shit.
I dated a guy who started a small press imprint to publish his own books. I am... skeptical about this - that's the nice way of saying it. That's vanity publishing of the highest order - that's the less nice way of saying it.
He was pretty careful to make sure there was a basic quality standard, I give him credit for that. And so reading his stuff was never a hardship. There was a basic level of professionalism there - but I only knew it was there because I knew him.
I'll read anything
oletheros writes and publishes because I KNOW that he's taking this as seriously as it is possible to take it when it comes to the quality of his work. (And I think self-publishing functions a little differently in the graphic novel world, too.) I'll take recommendations 'til the cows come home and I'm thrilled to read stuff that is suggested to me without regard for who/how it was published.
But I am incredibly reluctant to sift through large sites of author-published work because I don't know every author and I have zero confidence that everyone has that same level of basic attention to quality control.
Oh, there are some places where it matters to me less. I'll read self-published romance sometimes.
But as a general rule, if I don't have a certain level of confidence that the book is going to be free of technical errors, I'm not interested.
And that's not even getting into the benefit that editorial rounds provide. Seriously, y'all. A novel is not a virtuoso performance. And any author that believes it is, well, their books could probably benefit from an editor's hand.
It is possible that this makes me a snob.
SO BE IT.
I will be a snob if it means I don't have to sift through piles of unrevised, unrproofed self-published work to find the one good thing that I'd love. I will take that bullet for team literature.
The solution to this, I think, is to be found in small press releases. I love small presses. I love knowing that books have gone through a copyeditor's hands if absolutely nothing else. I don't care about format - ebooks are awesome. But I want some form of quality control on the books I read. Small presses are in a position to provide that even better than the mainstream publishing industry because they have such a close relationship with the author (in many, not all, cases). And small presses are better able, especially with ebooks, to take risks on new ideas, new authors. It seems like the best of both worlds to me.
I'm not saying self-publishing is the wrong thing to do - I'm not here to make that decision for anyone. And I can easily think of times when it is a fantastic idea. I'm just saying that yes, I have an ereader and I love it so fucking much but I'm not interested in downloading a bunch of self-published stuff (as great as it is that people are making things available in multiple formats) when the chances of me enjoying it are... well, pretty low. I'd rather spend the 7 bucks on something I know I'll like.
Hey, I'm a lot like the mainstream publishing industry in that way! *laugh*
Quality control: it's a beautiful thing.
This entry was originally posted at http://onceupon.dreamwidth.org/1255191.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
So it isn't like I'm all OUR CURRENT MODEL WORKS LEAVE IT ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE. It's creaking along and I'm not saying print is dead by any means but the industry is bleeding pretty heavily.
But when I'm linked to stuff like Smash Words, which operates on a pure self-publishing model... I am faced with an entirely new set of issues.
Now, I'm 100% positive that there are some fan-fucking-fastic undiscovered writers out there. Writers who can't break into the mainstream publishing industry because it isn't fair and it isn't risk-taking and so on. There are, I am just as positive, some truly astonishingly great self-published novels. After all, there's a lot of stuff published by big name imprints that is utter shit.
I dated a guy who started a small press imprint to publish his own books. I am... skeptical about this - that's the nice way of saying it. That's vanity publishing of the highest order - that's the less nice way of saying it.
He was pretty careful to make sure there was a basic quality standard, I give him credit for that. And so reading his stuff was never a hardship. There was a basic level of professionalism there - but I only knew it was there because I knew him.
I'll read anything
oletheros writes and publishes because I KNOW that he's taking this as seriously as it is possible to take it when it comes to the quality of his work. (And I think self-publishing functions a little differently in the graphic novel world, too.) I'll take recommendations 'til the cows come home and I'm thrilled to read stuff that is suggested to me without regard for who/how it was published.
But I am incredibly reluctant to sift through large sites of author-published work because I don't know every author and I have zero confidence that everyone has that same level of basic attention to quality control.
Oh, there are some places where it matters to me less. I'll read self-published romance sometimes.
But as a general rule, if I don't have a certain level of confidence that the book is going to be free of technical errors, I'm not interested.
And that's not even getting into the benefit that editorial rounds provide. Seriously, y'all. A novel is not a virtuoso performance. And any author that believes it is, well, their books could probably benefit from an editor's hand.
It is possible that this makes me a snob.
SO BE IT.
I will be a snob if it means I don't have to sift through piles of unrevised, unrproofed self-published work to find the one good thing that I'd love. I will take that bullet for team literature.
The solution to this, I think, is to be found in small press releases. I love small presses. I love knowing that books have gone through a copyeditor's hands if absolutely nothing else. I don't care about format - ebooks are awesome. But I want some form of quality control on the books I read. Small presses are in a position to provide that even better than the mainstream publishing industry because they have such a close relationship with the author (in many, not all, cases). And small presses are better able, especially with ebooks, to take risks on new ideas, new authors. It seems like the best of both worlds to me.
I'm not saying self-publishing is the wrong thing to do - I'm not here to make that decision for anyone. And I can easily think of times when it is a fantastic idea. I'm just saying that yes, I have an ereader and I love it so fucking much but I'm not interested in downloading a bunch of self-published stuff (as great as it is that people are making things available in multiple formats) when the chances of me enjoying it are... well, pretty low. I'd rather spend the 7 bucks on something I know I'll like.
Hey, I'm a lot like the mainstream publishing industry in that way! *laugh*
Quality control: it's a beautiful thing.
This entry was originally posted at http://onceupon.dreamwidth.org/1255191.html. Please comment there using OpenID.