"Oh, heck, I'll just publish it myself"

Technology -- and tenacity -- are making self-published titles the hottest sector of the book market

I am all for people doing their own thing -- making their own art, their own business, their own life -- and it's not like the self-publishing thought hasn't crossed my mind...

However, the real issue here (which G&M does not discuss in any detail) is that publishers are the intermediaries between The Giant Pool of Writing Out There, Most of Which is Crap, and the reading public. Publishers are bright, literate, interesting, and interested people, and their peer review function separates the wheat from the chaff. Publishers want to print things that people want to read; they are not so keen on publishing your really, really intensely experimental Braille poetry.

Of course, publishers also want to print things that people want to BUY. As a result, a lot of junk gets published, and a lot of non-junk (short stories, anyone?) has a hard time. It's a push-pull problem: when does the arbiter of taste become the dictator of the market?

The authors profiled by G&M have been lucky to side-step this problem: their vanity press efforts (for that is what they are) have ALSO been recognized by the literary establishment/the market, but I'm sure that most self-publishers end up with a basement full of unsold, unread masterpieces.

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Update: THE BOOK still lingers on some editor's desk somewhere...waiting...waiting...