• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Yog's Law and Self-Publishing (by John Scalzi)

TWErvin2

Auror
I came across this article and thought it might be of interest, not only to those authors who have an interest in 'traditional' but especially in 'self' publishing, or a hybrid/combination approach.

Recalling that Yog's Law states: "Money flows toward the writer."

Article link: Yog's Law and Self-Publishing
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Interesting article. I think Yog's law applies when the author is just the author, and a third party is the publisher. Then money should flow toward the writer and not away from the writer. When you take a self-published author, who also wears the hat of publisher, then money that would traditionally be spent by any publisher may now have to be spent by the author-as-publisher. Maybe Yog's law is simply incomplete when it comes to self-publishing. I like the idea of a corollary, but I'm not sure I like how Scalzi worded his corollary.
 
Hi,

Read this the other day. I don't think Yog's law needs a corollory. If you're self publishing than you're not paying a publisher. What you may be paying for are services such as cover design which you as the publisher control.

Yogs law is really meant to seperate the rip off publishers from the genuine ones. You know the ones that charge "reader fees" and so forth. Paying for a cover design is no different to paying for a new computer on which to write your masterpiece.

Cheers, Greg.
 
Top