One of these is ebooks. I sold a short story to an ebook publisher called Champagne Books (Burst division, for fantasy) last year and just had it come out. I'm not sure where that places me, as far as writing credentials
It means that you've had a short story accepted for publication. If they paid you for your story, that's better.
but this publisher has been around more than 8 years, is continually growing, and doing well, and I met them in person at a convention here - that's actually how I ended up submitting, and why I felt reassured it wasn't a scam.
There are other better ways to filter out the scammers, who have been known to attend conventions. For example, the notorious vanity press PublishAmerica has attended the London Book Fair.
I'm pretty sure that Champagne is one of the good guys, however. I don't want you to think I'm implying otherwise.
I was wondering if anyone else here can relate the experience. One thing I find challenging is how to think of myself - to me "author" goes with trade publishing, and ebook publishers are (in the case of my publisher) independent.
It sounds to me like you're confusing a few different things.
Most trade publishers publish books in all formats: paperbacks, hardbacks, e-books, audio books, large print, and so on. However, some specialise in publishing certain formats, such as e-books, audio books, or large print. Whatever format they publish in, they're still trade publishers if they acquire books from authors, and sell them to the booktrade.
Independent publishers are those which aren't part of a larger conglomerate: the format in which they publish isn't significant to their independent status.
Self publishers are publishers who publish books they've written themselves.
It's wrong to suggest that all "ebook publishers are independent": some are part of big conglomerates, some aren't.
Writers and authors (I use the terms interchangeably) write books. Publishers publish them. It doesn't matter how they're published, people who have written books are writers.
The publishing industry is changing a lot, which means the standards of what defines a book are getting more complicated (in my opinion).
The one thing that never changes about publishing is that it's always changing. In the thirty years or so that I've been working in publishing, the business has been transformed several times over. It's great. I love the challenges that this presents to us all, and the way it keeps our business creative and fresh. We are supremely lucky to be living in such times.
One thing that doesn't change is the book. The formats we publish it in change very often; the ways we do business change just as quickly; but the book is what it is. It's a chunk of magic which transforms and educates and entertains the people who read it regardless of what sort of container we've poured it into, or what sort of delivery process we employ to get it to its readers.
In other words books are simple: publishing them is complicated, and publishing them well is even more so.
I think there's definitely an instinct to try to clarify and classify, maybe even rank our publishing experiences.
I'm not sure it's helpful.
Agreed. The writing, the work: that's what's important. Publishing it well certainly helps; but it's pointless trying to rank the various publication routes as what does it prove? Nothing. Being published isn't like a university course where you need 180 credits to graduate: you can graduate as a writer by writing a really good book, whether it's your first or your fiftieth attempt.
The next step that works for you may be considered a step back by someone else. For example, I had quite a few novels published through reputable e-publishers before I experimented with self-publishing, which many on this board consider to be a tool of last resort.
I'll have words to say to anyone who suggests that self publishing is a last resort. And they will not be nice words.
I'm finding it a lot of fun here, though I think the editors here don't like me.
I posted in the editor section about my preference for "raw blogging" and created quite a commotion.
I don't think that's quite accurate, Graeme. I was the only editor who responded to
your other thread: everyone else who did so is a writer, I think. We found it odd that you, an aspiring writer and editor, don't revise your posts here or on your blog and put your comments up in an unpolished state. You did have the chance to reply, and our comments don't mean that we don't like you: just that we don't understand why you'd do that.
Still, it's pretty poor form to drag a discussion from one thread to another, so I'll stop now. I just didn't want you to feel that you were disliked because of that thread.
