Books get vetted by reviewers, by word of mouth, by the efforts of the
author him/herself to gather this material together and self-promote.
I have bought probably a dozen books in the last couple months based
on reviews, or promotion of one sort or another. Just b/c it's small
press doesn't mean there's no editorial screening. If a writer goes to
the trouble to write and self-publish a book, and doesn't follow up to
the extent they're capable of in promoting it, that's on them, but
otherwise, it's usually possible to find feedback from *somebody*
saying what they thought of it. Even a few reader comments on
Amazon.com is often enough to me me press the GO button. This isn't an
either/or scenario.
Don
On 12/18/09, davezeltserman <Dave.Zeltserman@gmail.com> wrote:
> --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Steve Gerlach <stezzariffic@...> wrote:
>>
>
>> Read some Dan Brown.... or try to. I'm sure there are plenty of
>> self-published books that are 110% more worthy to see print than a Dan
>> Brown.
>>
>
> Steve, I can't explain Dan Brown. But he did sell 80 million copies of Da
> Vinci Code worldwide, there has to be something there. Anway, regardless of
> what we might think of the quality of his writing, there's clearly a
> commercial appeal to his books that few other books will ever achieve.
>
> Yes, there are a ton of books being published purely on their commercial
> appeal that have no real literary merit, and there's little question that
> the large NY houses put more value on a book's commercial strength than on
> it's literary merit, but the vetting process (at least for fiction) is still
> important and usually does means a book at least meets a level of
> competency.
>
>> I'd rather have a choice of what to read than to be guided by a
>> personal preference of some nameless editor sitting in an office in
>> some multi-national conglomerate, publishing the latest
>> "blockbuster" to meet bottom lines and shareholder expectations.
>> Newscorp anyone?
>>
>
> Right now you can go to iUniverse and shop their 20,000 or so titles of
> self-published novels, but I'm guessing you don't do that very often because
> you've probably already figured out that traditionally published books meet
> a higher level than these self-published ones, and you have a better chance
> of buying a good book from someone like Morrow or Random House (and
> definitely Serpent's Tail!!) than you ever would from any of these
> self-published outfits.
>
> But in an ebook only world, how are you going to distinguish what's worth
> reading and what isn't, especially with 100s of thousands of titles buried
> in these future ebook stores??
>
> The reality is in this world the only writers who will make any money will
> be the biggest names who've already been established. The chances of any new
> author ever being able to make any money will be close to zero. Yes,
> everyone will be able to be published, there will be no barriers (nor will
> there be publishers), but how will the worthy books be found among this
> massive amount of future ebooks?? And why would anyone who has talent waste
> their time writing when there's not even the faint glimmer of hope of making
> any money at it?
>
>>
>> The game's changing, and all for the better. More choice, more variety.
>> Power to the readers. :)
>>
>
> Steve, you're right, the game is changing, but it's not going to be any
> benefit for readers, unless you count having to sift through 100s of crappy
> poorly-written self-published books to find one halfway decent once.
>
> --Dave
>
>
>
>
-- "Go soothingly on the greasy mud, for therein lies the skid demon." -- Chinese Road Sign
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 19 Dec 2009 EST