ebooks or vanity?
Where do I start? I’ve got this “hand held device.” It’s an App*e product, an iT*uch/iP*d. And I do actually read books on it. It’s been on my list of things to do to check out how I can get my own books onto my iT*uch. Moving PDF files over is easy, but PDFs aren’t such a nice format for reading. The ebook reader apps are pretty nice.
I just installed one yesterday called Stanza. (Evidently, it’s been purchased by Am*zon. Maybe they want to kill it? So it doesn’t compete with the K*dle?) Anyway, Stanza lets you put your own ebooks on your iRead device. There’s also a cross-platform “epub” formatter called Sigil. The “epub” format evidently is a fairly universal way to set up your ebooks to be read on portable devices or even on your desktop/laptop computer.
Writers (unlike filmmakers, painters, and musicians) seem to have a hang up when it comes to publishing their own work. Vanity press has a bad name. Why? If you look at the history of writers writing, you’ll see that it was really only in the twentieth century that this prejudice developed. I wonder with ebooks and these hand held readers if writers are going to ditch the middle people, the editors, publishers, marketers, booksellers, agents, etc.
It’s an interesting time to be a writer. There’s a practical question here too. Without all the “middle people” how is the Reader going to find the Author? Or maybe the real questions is how will the Author find the Reader?
April 27th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
It may not be justified and certainly isn’t universal, but in my experience the trouble with most self-published writings is that they’re crap. It may be my bias, but I think many of them would benefit from a good editing.
It’s like movies. While there are some great ones that would have ended up horribly with others involved, I approach films that are written, produced, directed and star one person with some suspicion. I guess our publishing practice is sort of similar to varietal or vintage wines or Olympic scoring, with the highs and lows tossed out to produce a more consistent product.
Yeah, the writing on my blog usually sucks as much as any.
April 28th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Hey Russ, While I can’t disagree with you about the majority of self-published novels being crap, there’s a lot of stuff that is published that is crap also. Yes, all novels should be edited and read critically by a few first readers before being unleashed onto the unsuspecting public. You know I’ve come up with schemes for doing this over the years. More later! D
April 28th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
I’d imagine even MORE traditionally published works are crap, and I should have mentioned that having the “filter” only works if it’s goal is to filter the right stuff.
Where the old way has an advantage is in distribution, getting the works out there. But that was your point.