Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Direct-Publishing Dirge

This is Why Self-Publishing isn’t Taken Seriously
The way for self-publishing to get taken seriously on a large scale is not if a Dan Brown comes out of Lulu. Frankly, I don’t care if some potboiler hits it big in the mainstream. People here should know that’s where I’m coming from – I’m more “literary fiction” minded, as generic as that term can be. For self-publishing to really be taken seriously, works of “serious” fiction need to come out of Lulu, and Lulu’s poetry site shows that this is not the demographic they’re aiming for. I know terms like “serious” are subjective, but I think you can tell the difference when something is written with more ambition.

That excerpt isn't the impetus for the post, but it's the part I wanted to show here.

Aside from what he points out in that post, there's this too:


Click = Big

Self Publishing Book Expo

Wow, with "friends" like that, producing HTML vomit like that, who needs enemies? It reminds me of those lines from Glengarry Glen Ross:
What you're hired for is to help us -- does that seem clear to you? To help us. Not to fuck us up ... to help men who are going out there to try to earn a living.

I dread imagining the plaid-suited hucksters who would be attracted by that website.

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