6 Self-Publishing Myths That Need to Die – The Writer's Cookbook

Item: literature has become a business rather than an art.

Item: publishers no longer do the work on their end. Writers should write, publishers should edit, publish, and market. That’s the way it should be, but now isn’t.

Item: the reason it isn’t, is because of the Advent of digital print. The digital world came about due to laziness and greed. Quick profits.

Item: publishing houses no longer have editors with degrees in literature. Now they have staff with degrees in marketing, and even the MBA degree – the two most worthless degrees to come out of an institution of higher education. Sorry everyone.

Item: this “slick” and easy digital profiteering is here, again, because of laziness, and throwing writers under the bus.

Item: remember all of those form letters from agents and publishers saying they’re no longer accepting manuscripts due to their huge backlogs? Well, why aren’t the backlogs being worked? Because all publishers, or at least most, only want to make money and do not do the work on their end.

Item: publishers do not even want to edit now. They want any manuscript they rarely accept now to already be edited by a “professional.”

Item: I could go on and on. But the bottom line is that it is almost impossible for a new writer to even get their manuscript read because of the greed and laziness in publishing houses. Even when they agree to “take a look” they only want a partial submission (50 pages) and that has to be a digital submission. Easier for them to take a quick glance and then reject.

Item: in short, the reason it is so difficult to get published is because hardly anyone at the publishing houses do not do the work on their end. Again, writers write. Publishers edit, publish, and market. Or that’s the way it used to be, and should still be.

How about those of us who just love to write, don’t worry about any competition, because the writing is an end in itself? Self-publishing is an inexpensive way to be honest with who we are, including the “wattles,” as artist of real people Rockwell said he painted?

Making music, or dancing, or drawing, or gardening even though you spend tons more to buy soil and plants than you can ever recoup in dollars, or in edible vegetables? Posters who don’t expect to change the world but enjoy living in it with the message that someday all will be perfect but not today?

Okay so what if you read a book that stinks or that you can’t read for the typos etc? I think we ought to have a genre for us who need to put our work out there but don’t want any money because our work will never be commercial quality algorithms or not. We are just shining our own lights for all the world who cares to see, the way a bird squawks if it can’t sing pretty to everyone’s ears.

How about a No-talent genre for us realistic but enthusiastic publisher-writers? I wonder if that would go over with the owners that be given power to let us hopefuls keep on trying and enjoying ourselves? I wonder if this post will ever be seen, since it’s a comment to an old one?

In my experience, there’s a ton of utter rubbish out there that’s self-published. We’re talking books that wouldn’t receive a passing grade from a high school English teacher, let alone get through the very first gatekeepers in trad houses.

Two great examples. Recently on Kboards there was an author trying desperately to figure out why his book wasn’t selling. I read the preview on Amazon, and oh my it was god awful. So so so bad.

Another example is a self published author now on his second epic fantasy novel. I enjoyed the first, but the second I couldn’t even finish because of the writing quality. Thing is, if it had been seen by more eyes (or by a better editor), like it *might* have with a trad publisher, the book could have been so much better. I’m an editor and all I wanted to do was break out the red pen when reading it.

Now, there’s a ton of traditionally published books that aren’t up to snuff either, so it’s not as if trad publishing is a guarantee of quality. That said, I’ve rarely seen an indie published book reach the heights of a quality trad book. Not saying indies cannot match trad quality, but it’s a rarity in my experience.

I’m not trying to bash indies. I intend to go that route with my first novel. But the level of quality in the indie realm is quite troubling to me. Maybe it’s my genre (epic fantasy) but while I keep hearing people say that quality doesn’t correlate to indie/trad published, my experience is that the vast majority of indie published books ARE of lesser quality, even if trad publishing is not a guarantee itself.