Legitimacy of self publishing. Answer question below.?

Years ago, the sole purpose of publishing was to recognize beautiful literature or informative texts and bring them to the public. Today, publishing is about profit (for the publishers), which is why so much rubbish is published by conventional means. This includes most anything written by a "celebrity," including Madonna's children's book and Britney Spears' mother's book on child-rearing.

The changes in publishing have also included limited budgets that have restricted the number of works (fiction or non-fiction) a publisher can print in the course of any given fiscal year.

This has opened the door on self-publishing, which at one time was a legitimate avenue for some authors. But the industry of self-publishing is not legitimate and does not legitimize anyone or his/her work.

It is not reasonable to make an argument that "A Time To Kill" (Grisham's best work) was self-published, therefore, self-publishing is legitimate. I think it is important to remember that the method of publishing does not legitimize the writing. The writer alone is responsible for that.

It is also important to mention that Grisham's first book was not accepted by a conventional publisher because, in all its beautiful prose, it lacked the obvious elements that would easily carry it to a screenplay. You see in subsequent novels how Grisham covered that.

The "Celestine Prophecy," "Remembrance of Things Past" and "The Adventures of Peter Rabbit" and a handful of other books were originally self-published. This does not legitimize self-publishing. It legitimizes the work, for one reason or another, those authors were doing at the time.

Less than one-one hundreth of one percent of all self-published books sells even the first copy.

Today, self-publishing is a huge industry that seeks to make a profit for its principles. There are no standards. None. Even the "editorial services" offered by these hacks are not worth two cents.

Those of us who write do not write for fame and fortune because we know better. Sure, we would like to be recognized, but we are not so desperate as to stoop to the ranks of the mostly illiterate scribblers who have paid a great deal of money to have their unreadable crap bound between two heavier pieces of paper and called "a book."

These folks can then declare themselves "published authors." This does not mean that they then understand what a comma is used for or that they can magically now write a decent sentence. People who run around and announce that they are "published authors" use the label mostly as a pick-up line.

Given that I know good writing and that I understand publishing and am familiar with the business, I am not impressed.

In our American Idol culture where a dimwit can be elected president and an untrained singer can be declared a star based on telephone voting, everyone expects to be famous. And they expect that fame to come easily.

Very, very few people understand what it takes to write and they sure as hell have no clue as to the ugly business of publishing. I am shocked by how many people assume that, once they have declared their scribbling worthy, believe they just call up the publisher and it happens. Poof! Just like that!

Self-publishing (and vanity publishing, which is an entirely different animal) has become a joke. Certainly a number of serious writers hope to use it to get their works out there and nothing should stand in the way of that. But for the most part, self-publishing is an embarrassment.

John Grisham, Marcel Proust, James Joyce or Beatrix Potter or any other legitimate writer has no power to change that.

You did not pick up "Bridges" or "A Time to Kill" because it was self-published. You picked it up AFTER it was legitimized by a conventional publisher, which picked it up after word-of-mouth created decent sales.

The internet has made it possible for self-publishing to be a viable option for an author. It gives more people a voice, and allows different types of stories to be told.

My experience deals mostly with comics. Up until recently, you had DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, and a few others. They decided what made good comics. If you didn't fit into their standards, you were S.O.L.

They had some pretty specific standards for each publisher. They didn't take a lot of risks, and if pimply teenaged white boys didn't like it, they wouldn't print it.

Then, webcomics came along. Originally published online, and often collected into trade paperbacks later, there is no one telling them what they can and can't write.

Suddenly, we're seeing comics about all kinds of things that big publishers thought would never sell. Things that are aimed at people other than teenaged white boys. There are more comics aimed at women, gay people, people of color, and various other groups than there ever were before. New stories are being told. And all these underrepresented people are flocking to these new comics, eager to see something that is, for once, aimed at them.

While the lack of editors is a double edged sword (more stories getting told, but a lot of these stories ARE bad), a lot of the ones that are popular are so because of a certain quality about them, either great art or writing, or funny jokes.

There are webcomics writers who have more followers than X-Men. People are able to make careers off of it, and fans are loving it. It's gotten to the point where DC and Marvel are trying to make webcomics now! But as the whole point of webcomics has always been "creator-owned, creator-run", it's not working out too well for them.

So in conclusion, yes, self-publishers are just as much authors as traditionally-published authors. There are turds in both piles, perhaps more turds in the self publishing side, but just because something is self-published does not mean it's bad, or not legitimate.

I'm all for self-publishing. Not all self-published books are poorly written. Some have gone on to do very well, as you have pointed out. What I'm concerned with is naive, blind people who do not have a marketable product being convinced by these companies to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on books that will never be unloaded.

I suggest attempting traditional means first. You tend to get more money that way. If that fails, go with a POD publisher, someone that will not ask you to pay to have five hundred copies printed, only to have them sitting in your basement unsold.

Because they didn't go through the same selection and editing process as the traditionally published books.

A professional orchestra, where the musicians are all paid to play and have to be of an extremely high standard to get a job in it in the first place, is going to be better overall than an amateur orchestra. But that doesn't mean that a couple of the players in an amateur orchestra might not be professional standard, maybe even better than some of the pros.

Same with self-publishing. On average, the books are not going to be of the same quality as the traditionally published ones because nobody's weeded out the less good ones. Some of them will be written by people as skilled as the pro authors and who drive themselves to reach the same high standards, or even higher. But most won't be. And so pro authors are sniffy about self-published authors who insist they are every bit as good, just as a pro violinist would be pretty darn sniffy (with justification) if I went around announcing that I was a violinist too and every bit as good as him, just because I pay to be in my local amateur orchestra.

I don't know much about publishing. I have two of the books you mentioned and didn't even know they were self-published until I read this. I guess that tells me they are just as legitimate as any other book.

When you see the litany of crap posted from teens and adults promoting their "novels" like they're best-selling authors you can understand why many writers have such a great disdain for self-publishing. There is virtually no accountability in self-publishing.

Who is there to ensure the story flows? Who is there to edit (and self-editing does NOT count nor does using a friend who happens to allegedly be good at editing) and correct errors?

Niche markets like location specific areas or non-fiction items that are beneficial to the audience is one thing. Fiction requires a certain finesse that cannot be achieved without thorough editing and review by legit professionals. An established author like Grisham is merely an exception but certainly not the rule.

Self-publishing amateurs have stars in their eyes and dreams of their book hitting the best-seller list. They foresee fame and fortune rather than the dirty realities of the writing industry. Writing one [typically] piece of crap book is NOT going to make one rich or famous. It does not make you a credible, published author. It makes you one of the many egotistical chumps who suddenly thinks you're something because you either did not bother to do the research to consider traditional publishing or you're too lazy so you self-publish and think it means something. I think not.

I have a been a professional non-fiction writer for seven years. I still have yet to achieve great success with it. And I've been working my as* off in the process. In seven years I have only recently (as in the past 7-8 months) become established enough as a freelancer to work from home and get small jobs through promotion and advertising of my Web site. And in those months I still have a long way to go.

Self-publishing is fine when the writer does not have outlandish ideas of the outcome by thinking it's going to propel them to great success. Unfortunately, most who do self-publish somehow think it will and in the process get a big head about it and try to pass themselves off as legit authors. Sorry, but no. To a majority of the self-published crowd I say step off your pedestal and join reality.

EDIT:

Considering you're a fan of self-publishing it does not surprise me you are blind to the rampant egos that pervade the self-publishing arena.

I used to know one gentleman through the internet who was a self-proclaimed genius writer. He expected people to fawn all over him. He essentially declared himself the greatest writer and could not be told differently. His "fans" were mostly drooling women who wouldn't know good writing if it hit them right in their fake tatas.

And it's not just him. I've seen it right here on Yahoo! where some putz brags about being a published author and how great they are. I decide to do my research and find it's not only self-published, it's horribly written. So, yes, there is quite the ego while standing atop a pedestal.

I agree merit should be considered but how can merit really be determined when the writer in question seemingly never bothered to consider traditional publishing? Sadly there are assumptions but those are often justified by one look at the writing.

Open a book written by a self-published author and tell me you see no errors, no flaws in style, plot, concept, etc. While I do not specialize in fiction I can open a book and know right off the bat whether the writing will be subpar or of quality.