I came across a great article today. At first I assumed it was going to be an article against authors who self publish by calling them lazy and unwilling to take rejection, but it surprised me by being one of the best articles I have read. It talked about how traditional writers from traditional publishers have seemed to really be against indie authors who self publish and how just because some authors self publish, that doesn't mean that their work is bad. Some indie authors, in fact, have better novels and writing out their than a few published writers whom I have read.
I read one book recently, which I will not mention in order to not offend the author or their followers, but it was published by Random House and had a huge following and even an upcoming movie, but it was one of the worst books I have ever read. The plot had been done countless times before and the writing was amateur. I couldn't finish the book and I was livid that a traditional publisher would have allowed this author to be published and create such a huge following for it, when the book clearly promoted relationship violence.
I have come to find that more unknown books have had the best writing that I have ever read, or heard. A writer I just met self publishes his own audio books, and listening to those books astounded me. He used flawless detail and painted a picture for the reader of which I had never experienced before. I thought, if lesser known writers can come up with great pieces of work like this, than why aren't they getting published?
When I told him he should try to get published he said that he didn't want to, because he has heard from a number of writers that publishing can crush your soul.
In this I agree. People can tear you apart, including a lot of other authors, and you lose sight of the passion that you had to begin with sometimes.
But the purpose of me saying all of this is that I want to encourage writers to go the self publishing route. As a whole you will earn more money and you won't have to deal with publishers wanting to change your work entirely. You will have to work harder, marketing wise, and you may have to spend your own money to get an editor or other forms of help, but you will be able to sell your own work without changing it.
I read one book recently, which I will not mention in order to not offend the author or their followers, but it was published by Random House and had a huge following and even an upcoming movie, but it was one of the worst books I have ever read. The plot had been done countless times before and the writing was amateur. I couldn't finish the book and I was livid that a traditional publisher would have allowed this author to be published and create such a huge following for it, when the book clearly promoted relationship violence.
I have come to find that more unknown books have had the best writing that I have ever read, or heard. A writer I just met self publishes his own audio books, and listening to those books astounded me. He used flawless detail and painted a picture for the reader of which I had never experienced before. I thought, if lesser known writers can come up with great pieces of work like this, than why aren't they getting published?
When I told him he should try to get published he said that he didn't want to, because he has heard from a number of writers that publishing can crush your soul.
In this I agree. People can tear you apart, including a lot of other authors, and you lose sight of the passion that you had to begin with sometimes.
But the purpose of me saying all of this is that I want to encourage writers to go the self publishing route. As a whole you will earn more money and you won't have to deal with publishers wanting to change your work entirely. You will have to work harder, marketing wise, and you may have to spend your own money to get an editor or other forms of help, but you will be able to sell your own work without changing it.
Don't let people make you feel bad if you go this route. This route is NOT lazy as most commonly believed, it is much harder and you have to work your way up even more.
Here is the article that inspired my rant: http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidvinjamuri/2012/08/15/publishing-is-broken-were-drowning-in-indie-books-and-thats-a-good-thing/
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