![]() Hugh Howey’s science fiction omnibus, Wool, Amanda Hocking’s Y.A. Naturally, some self-published writers get respect. Self-published authors are only a threat to traditional publishers insofar as they are better able to distribute their work than they were, say, 20 years ago. That is, if the publishers stop and publish a literary book occasionally. Rowling… writers with initials instead of names…and, oh, yeah, Stephen King…continue writing, publishing will survive. It’s very funny, and perhaps it’s true.īur as long as E. Howard Jacobson’s novel, Zoo Time, centers on the death of publishing. Last year several well-known journalists said that bloggers, tweeters, members of GoodReads, social media users, and others they perceive as online cranks have wrecked the sovereignty of editors, critics, and writers. Yes, we’ve heard this kind of criticism before. I compare self-publishing to a student managing to conquer Five Easy Pieces on the piano and then wondering if s/he’s ready to be booked into Carnegie Hall.” “Self-publishing is a short cut and I don’t believe in short cuts when it comes to the arts. ![]() ![]() He wrote about breakthrough “indie” novels by Hugh Howey, Amanda Hocking, and John Locke.īut he says self-publishing raises the hackles of major publishers and writers. In Forbes last August, David Vinjamuri mused about the potential of self-published e-books in the midst of an Old Media publishing slump. Michiko Kakutani, a tough book critic at The New York Times, chose Alan Sepinwall’s self-published The Revolution Was Televised, a book of TV criticism, as one of her best books of 2012. It’s not just the Washington Post that is softening up. ![]() But in I recently read a story in The Washington Post about an Open Mike party for self-published authors at Politics and Prose, a Washington bookstore that has printed 9,000 books by self-published authors via an Opus Espresso Print-on-Demand machine. Not long ago, journalists wouldn’t have bothered to report on the self-publishing trend. The rest of us are not snobs, but we know that editors have probably rejected the books before the authors go this route.Īnd when people give us copies of their self-published novels or poetry chapbooks, we are polite, but do we read them?Īttitudes are changing as new technology, like self-published e-books formatted for free at Lulu and Smashwords, makes self-publishing almost trendy. Writers who published in traditional venues, whether in the New York Times or the most lacklustre local magazines, tended to despise those who publish their own work. Until a couple of years ago, self-publishing was frowned upon. These memoirs, mysteries, family histories, and science fiction novels are by unknown writers…and you have never heard of the publishers. Mason’s book was originally self-published.Īn array of slightly too-shiny paperbacks with offbeat covers winks from a back shelf at the local bookstore. ![]()
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