Edan writes over at TheMillions.com about why NOT self-publish. He lays out 8 logical reasons (to him) that back up his decisions. Fine, you can, and should, do whatever you want.
But… let’s not pretend this is more than what it’s really about, and that is validation. Because your arguments don’t make sense to a business person. Don’t like Amazon? Too bad. You want to sell a lot of books, you must play with them in their sandbox. It’s the same thing as people who tell me they hate Google and won’t play by their rules. That’s just stupid. Fine, if you won’t play with them, then you can’t run a business the best you can.
Writing books for validation is just bad business, and that’s what bothers people like me about when people like Edan give bogus reasons why they won’t self-publish. At least admit it. It’s about validation for you. If you were a business person, with a business mindset, you’d look at the legacy model and run screaming, or laughing.
But you don’t look at it that way, and that’s fine with me/us, just own the real reasons and not pretend it’s anything else. JR nailed it in the comments.
You know there are a lot of reasons for deciding to go with traditional publishing rather than self-publishing. What I am sorry to see is people making the decision based more on emotion, prejudice and ignorance than facts. And I’m sorry, but that is what you are doing here if your list is honest.
For example, your first one, that you are not a self-hater made me go, huh? And then I read the whole thing. What were you really saying? That you need validation from a corporation for your writing. That you can’t get enough validation from readers and if a company doesn’t tell you a writer, then you aren’t. I would say that you already — if not hate yourself — then don’t have much respect for yourself. I’m sorry that you are making an important business decision on such a need for validation rather than what may be best for you as a writer.
Thanks for the response to my article. But, just FYI, I'm a she, not a he!
Ha, I'm so sorry Edan. I guess I just didn't think about it. Thanks for commenting.
I also read and commented on Edan's blog- I told the story of my horror with a publisher and what led me to self-publishing. There is nothing wrong with either route, as I stated there. What I dislike is those who give the attitude of superiority over self-published authors just because apparently having a publisher back you up is validation that your book is "good." Truth is, the publisher plays a complete guessing game when they take a gamble on accepting books. Who REALLY decides what is good or not, without prejudice to the production means, are the readers. I saw readers who bashed the publisher I was with because of the lack of quality they produced their books with. Readers know what is good quality, self-published or traditionally published. That so-call "slush" is nothing more than a huge sea of books readers can choose from. Self-publishing should be celebrated for writers who would otherwise never see the light of day with traditional publishers, because there are SO many talented authors out there who would be stuck in that situation if they didn't have the entrepreneur option of publishing their books.
In my opinion there is no difference between a digital book and a "real" book anymore, except a hardcover. Thanks for commenting and I hope you come back for more.
There really isn't much of a difference any more. Ebooks are treated just as hard copy books are. The ones making the big deal out of eBooks are those who haven't caught up with the technology yet- the anti-technology people so to speak. Which is sad because the world of eBooks opens so many doors for both traditional and self-publishers.