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To the Self-Important Member of the Traditional Publishing Industry Who Wouldn’t Appreciate This
This entry was posted in Business, Publishing and tagged control, fear, publishing, reasons. Bookmark the permalink.
There, there. Of course he’s wrong, but the publishing industry wouldn’t be in the state it’s in right now if they hadn’t become so entrenched in their opinions.
Sure, it *used* to be that vanity presses put out shoddy work. It’s probably still true, because they’re simply printing presses– they’re not small publishers, and newb authors didn’t know the difference, and in that sense they were preyed on. But really, that was the 90s. Where has this guy been?
Nowadays, yes, traditional publishing is about gatekeepers, and also to a lesser extent it’s about status. There’s still a cachet to having your business book published by Simon and Schuster: it signals to the rest of your status conscious world that You Have Arrived. So in the sense that it’s a well-trod (but quickly disappearing) path to the recognition you crave, traditional publishing still serves it’s authors in some small way.
But if you *really* care about your ideas, and want to incubate and nurture them, you’ll start a blog, be active in forums, spread your ideas far and wide, and keep a nice POD or e-book on your sidebar for fans to explore.
Hey, stop trying to calm me down. Gimme a few minutes to revel in the buzz of righteous indignation.
Well said, my dear, and meaningful. The authors I care about want to spread ideas, not make an easy living.
The only publisher that carries any cachet with me personally is The Domino Project, but they’d have to come out of retirement to publish my next book, so I’ll soldier on in ignorant bliss.
This particular topic does seem to bring out the worst in some. Take a deep breath. Now that you’ve ranted, it’s time to focus on what you can do to help those who feel the same way you do.
Times are changing and people like the one you mentioned in this post will end up being left behind.
There’s a comforting thought!
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Now your Finding Why post (http://www.findingwhy.com/secret-hopes-for-vanguard-fear/) makes sense! Thank you!
(Subscribed here, too, now!)