An outrageous article on Self Publishing

God.

She says herself she's only read about a dozen self-published books and she goes on this rant built around a massively unwarranted generalization about the entire world of self published work.

I don't even know where to begin with this.

 

Honestly, I don't see a lot of anger in this woman's article. I think she is wrong when she writes, "Good writers only become good because they’ve undertaken an apprenticeship.", but that mostly falls along the category of using all or nothing, which never exactly rings true (Did I just an all or nothing argument in that sentence...). Clearly there are many paths to getting good at writing.

I think it is obviously true that there are many who think the route of acceptance by publishing houses equates to doing things the proper way, and there many as well who would argue that the Indi route has a lot to offer and does something along the lines of allowing artist to flourish without the filter or funnel of the publishing houses. I think there are merits on both sides.

Sturgen's law is 90% of everything is crap, publishing houses and their processes work to weed a lot of that out, so it should not be surprising that one can encounter more crap minus the filter. But, you know, 10% makes it all worth while.

Click bait? Well that is just life on the internet.

 

Sturgeon's Law originally was "Nothing is always absolutely so." The other thing was known as "Sturgeon's Revelation".

Theodore Sturgeon - Wikiquote

 

Ah, well this one I might be able to argue with Sturgeon's Revelation then.

I am not sure there is much in the media that does not amount to opinion pieces anymore. Whatcha gonna do? I have clicked on my fair share of click bait. Usually regret it, but it happens.

 

What strikes me as a good idea is getting a website of your own with alot of ads on it, having the book on there for free, and making it so the person reading has to click next page. This along with self promotion on youtube and instagram etc.

 

That's the kind of site I despise, and I'd choose to find something else to read. For that scheme to have a chance at working, you need a hook at the end of every single page that compels the reader to go to the next page. But if the text is that compelling, who's going to pay attention to the ads? And most of these ad companies pay for clicks rather than impressions, so you end up with little return for your effort, while pissing off potential readers like me.

 

Your measured response was proudly Canadian, heh heh. Self-pub is for real and that riles some folks. Not simply real in its own right, but real in its ability to get the attention of traditional publishing.