Re: Why Is Indie OK For Musicians And Filmmakers - But Not For Writers?

From: "Robotech_Master" 
On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 5:29 AM, joseph harris <[email protected]>wrote:

> [Good question. Also worth noting the increasing infrastructure for
> independent publishing.]
>
> Why Is Indie OK For Musicians And Filmmakers - But Not For
> Writers?
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Self-published books deserve more attention from readers and retailers
> http://www.booktrade.info/i.php/29423
> http://publishingperspectives.com/2010/09/why-is-indie-ok-for-musicians-and-filmmakers-but-not-for-writers/


It's a good question, but I don't think this service is necessarily the
answer. As I noted on TeleRead, it's largely a PR piece advertising the
author's pay-in-advance-for-placement e-publishing site, and I'm always a
bit suspicious of that sort of thing—it smells like "vanity press" to me.

-- 
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Chris,

I certainly wouldn't argue with those points. I brought this to attention because it has the makings of a distribution system for book publishing indies. Like all money up front deals it needs careful assessment. It puts focus on the issue of POD distribution more than anything. 

I believe that there is also good reason for distribution to online retailers. The flood of ebooks means few can actually spend time sorting through the titles. The growth, specially in specialist and organisation (like charities and museums etc) online retailers, means few micro and small publishers will find it easy to distribute when the numbers reach the hundreds. Many of the smallest publishers write their own publications; many of those would prefer to spend time on the writing, than on such aspects.

Payment for such services is very difficult to work out. There are not the hard copies to take a percentage of.  

I have always thought and argued than new forms of publishing will look like old ones in many respects. This is because the basic problems for writers and publishers are not changed by the technologies. 

And the basic marketing problem is still getting noticed!

Joseph

Joseph Harris is Smile Poet
Mailing list [email protected]
http://smilepoet.com     [email protected]


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