Anna, you need to re-read my post!
I just have, Random--although I read it carefully the first time, Random! My opinion hasn't changed.
I was on the verge of heading back to the "real world" and a PAYE job, when YWO appeared, and despite the shoddy treatment (and it is very shoddy) the experience renewed me. I became at ease with my writing again, I started to write again, I became at ease with myself.
I'm sorry but I don't get this. I'm pleased you feel 'renewed' and 'at ease with yourself' but how can you when you admit to having been treated shoddily. How can an outfit that doesn't operate any quality control before printing your book give you a boost? Or is it because you'd become bogged down with trying to sell your manuscript and getting no joy from traditional publishers and now with the advent of YWO you could finally 'get it out there' and move on? If that had been me, I would have put it to one side and got on with writing another novel and felt energised that way. Or self-published properly. I warned people on my blog not to have anything to do with YWO's 'publish by Christmas' scheme--and that was before it all went pear-shaped.
The YWO experience was for me cathartic. I am again earning money as a Non-Fiction writer and enjoying writing fiction on the side. My crises is passed. Yet you only see bad stuff here...
I don't see bad stuff. I see sad stuff.
Okay, so as you put it, a handful of people will read my book and say "nice" things about it. That's more than if I left it to the publishers who were not interested. And the fact is, there are plenty of books from mainline publishers who are only read by a handful of people, or worse still, never finished at all because they are so poorly written.
I don't follow your logic here. How can a book published by a mainstream (I think you mean) not be finished? And why didn't you self-publish? You would have been in total control of your book and not subject to people who haven't a clue what they're doing.
Just being accepted and published by a publisher doesn't mean you have a good book. I also happen to believe the reverse.
Again. I don't get this. Whilst I agree with you that a vanity-published book isn't necessarily bad, my experience as a reviewer is that the vast majority of them are. I have read stinkers by people who cannot put a coherent or interesting sentence together. Most need a rigorous edit and the product itself (cover, feel and look of the print on the pages) is poor. Traditionally published books can't hope to appeal to everyone's tastes but I disagree with you that they're all bad. That sounds like sour grapes to me.
My previous post wasn't there to blow my own trumpet but to show how traditional publishers treat their writers and most importantly don't take their money under false pretences and also why I feel you and other YWO writers have been badly treated. You may feel energised by being a published fiction writer but, I agree with Old Hack and Priceless 1 and others who've commented here and believe that in the long run it's not going to do your writing career any favours. Sorry.