I don't think this most excellent article (which i got to from Old Hack's How Publishing Really Works blog) has been linked to from here yet, but it should be. Even though most of us already know this, i think the article is a great one to point people at when we don't have the time to explain what the real deal is.
Anyway, here it is: The Great Underground Myth: Why Self Publishing Doesn't Work.
While the article's author uses the term self publishing, he is generally referring to vanity publishing, but uses the term because the two have become so intertwined.
Perhaps my favorite paragraph:
Though this one might just inch it out:
I think i am going to link people to this often.
Anyway, here it is: The Great Underground Myth: Why Self Publishing Doesn't Work.
While the article's author uses the term self publishing, he is generally referring to vanity publishing, but uses the term because the two have become so intertwined.
Perhaps my favorite paragraph:
Our old friend G.P. Taylor writes that ‘The writer has now, thanks to the advent of the internet and email, a publishing house at their fingertips.’ This line nicely illustrates the delusions people have about the internet. Jane Smith is a lonely Cassandra in a sea of frothing bullshit. Writers’ message boards are full of people who believe that the internet is a tool allowing them to sell their work to an audience of millions without much effort on their part. Acres of webspace are filled with fantasies of the print novel being replaced by downloadable books read from screen and ‘bricks-and-mortar’ booksellers dying out.
Though this one might just inch it out:
And this is not surprising, for the criteria of self-publishing is not quality of work, but the authors’ ability to pay. Despite all its shortcomings mainstream publishers still pay to publish books by talented writers. And for all its multiplicity of names the model of self publishing is still that of the writer paying someone who will produce their book, regardless of quality. Selling and marketing a self published book takes time, and time costs money. For all its wide-eyed, slack-jawed futurism, self publishing is a return to the old model, where books were circulated around a wealthy elite, and to be a writer one either had to be rich or have a rich patron.
I think i am going to link people to this often.
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