Old Hack, because the perspective of a lot of people on this particular subforum is anti-self-publishing. I'm not even a self-publisher (though I'm toying with it, just as an experiment), and I can see that. I've lurked here a long time.
Others have made that claim before and I've told them the same things I'm about to tell you:
1) If you think a post is inappropriate in any way
please use the "report post" button, so that the mods can deal with it.
2) Just because someone questions assertions made about self-publishing doesn't mean that they're anti-self-pubishing.
3) Correcting misunderstandings about trade publishing is not necessarily being anti-self-publishing.
I can remember the old "you epublished writers are living in dreamland" posts from 2008, too. There is a real neo-Luddite attitude toward everything related to publishing evolution. I don't mean just skepticism, I mean negativity. Even the topic on this particular forum shows that negativity -- it's not a rah-rah forum indeed, it's the reverse.
You complain about posts from 2008 and in your next breath, you complain that people here are resistant to change? You do see the irony in that, don't you?
As for the "not a rah-rah forum" bit: there are plenty of rah-rah forums but they tend to support a lot of misinformation and fallacy. By all means prefer them if they're more to your taste.
The people who post here most often aren't primarily epublished or self-published. Your viewpoint is heavily reflected in the attitude here. Why some of you even post on self-publishing, I'm not at all sure, except that some of you seem to need to evangelize a position you want to believe is true, which is pretty much what you guys often accuse the self-publishers of doing.
All of AW is for all of its members. We don't stop self-published members from posting in the bits of AW which are centred on trade publishing; we're not going to stop trade-published members from commenting in the Self-Publishing section. Are you saying we should hand out permission slips depending on how people have published? How about we don't let unpublished writers post anywhere? We only let agents post in the Ask The Agent section? This could revolutionise the whole of AW!
The future scares you, I get that, but you shouldn't hand out false information because you want to believe that, any more than the hot air merchants do.
You seem very keen on telling me that I'm scared, just because you disagree with me. This, from another thread today:
OldHack, what I said is very simple ... there are more people making money as writers.
{snipped}
I think a lot of the acrimony being flung at self-publishing (and I can count two negative posts for every positive one in the self-publishing forum) and small press is based on fear. Change is scary. Things are changing.
I'm not scared by self-publishing, and I don't know why you keep on telling me that I am. It increases the possibilities open to writers, and that can only be a good thing. What I don't like is when people spout rubbish and in so doing, they encourage writers to make decisions they might regret. But that doesn't scare me either. It just makes me cross.
I've also noticed that, so long as the perspective of extreme skepticism of self-publishing is kept up, everyone is thoroughly happy to let topics derail themselves. As soon as someone voices a different perspective, everyone starts demanding we stay on topic. lol And quite soon I'll have someone come in and say "but you are flaming people!" when I don't know how many self-publishers I've watched be bullied off this board without having their attackers questioned.
I often ask people to stay on-topic in order to keep discussions on-track, but anyone is always free to begin a new discussion if they like a particular diversion. That's pretty standard procedure not just here on AW, but on every other internet message-board I've belonged to.
As for people being "bullied off this board": if people used the "report post" function more often, or PMed the mods when they could see something going wrong, we might be able to help put a stop to that negative behaviour. And don't forget that what you see out here in the open is often only a small part of what happens at AW.
I have several friends who make several thousand a year selling books on Amazon. They don't make 50K but they do make 5-10K a year.
I have several friends who make hundreds of thousands a year via their trade published books, and several friends who can't keep themselves in Starbucks out of what they earn from their writing. I don't assume that either of the two groups provides a big enough sample for me to make any real judgement on the state of the business: I prefer to rely on proper statistics. I'm foolish like that.
Some make as much with self-publishing as they do with small press. They also do a LOT of promotion. You may not like that, but it remains the case.
I know that. I have friends who have self-published. Why would I not like that they're successful? You're making all sorts of assumptions about me and so far, they've all been wrong. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder, especially when it comes to me.
Had those same people tried to trade market their manuscripts, they'd still be reaching for their sealing sponge on a new stack of envelopes.
"Trade market"? I assume you mean "trade publish". And how do you know they'd not yet be published if they'd chosen that route?
Okay, now I'll go away and not post on the topic again. I've spoken my truth - believe what you like. Let the status quo resolve itself. Yeesh.
Post what you like. So long as you conform to our RYFW rule you're welcome. Although it does seem to me that you would rather be elsewhere; and I do think you need to step back and consider why you're getting so riled up by the threads here.
And now, back on topic, please.
(Ha!)
