Is it worth writing?
December 27th, 2006I’ve been following a discussion which raised several issues like do editors pander to popular taste? [this led to a bit of wandering on popular taste and snobs versus popular consumers] Can you get a serious, literary book published? [this led to talk about whether a book had to be serious to be literary -- oh, and there was a real digression about Nietzsche] The forum then segued into self-publishing [one person seemed very concerned about whether the list in an article at the Self Publishing Hall of Fame (owned by John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books and editor of the Book Marketing Update newsletter) was legit. This same person objected to the list at Illumina ("This list was compiled by Dan Poynter, author of The Self-Publishing Manual," quoted by a company in the business of helping authors self-publish.]
And on and on it went. It wasn’t until everyone had succombed to the effects of too much eggnog that one lone voice raised the question of why writers write, and why they write what they write.
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My list at the Self-Publishing Hall of Fame is as accurate as I can make it. I don’t want to mislead anyone. And I don’t encourage people to self-publish when it would make more sense for them to find a really good publisher and continue on with their writing. Or to sell to a great independent publisher. I list and recommend all the alternatives at my BookMarket.com web site. It’s one reason I list the top 101 independent book publishers. It’s also why I list more than 400 editors who have bought a first novel in the past three years. I do not appreciate POD publishers who use my list as justification for misleading authors.
Comment by John Kremer ? December 28, 2006 @ 6:13 pm
Oh yes, why do I write. Because I have to. SImple as that. I can’t help myself. I write books because I want to read them. Have to read them. Must read them.
Comment by John Kremer ? December 28, 2006 @ 6:15 pm