Objection!

[naomi_jay]

I'm tired, so please forgive me if I sound really grumpy, but ... well, I'm about to be really grumpy.

I'm fed up of seeing the endless bitching and pissing over indie v trad publishing, whether indies should refer to themselves as indies, whether self-publishing is valid or vanity, whether traditional publishing is dead, how your an idiot if you want to waste time with agents, how you're a failure if you want to self-publish, how you'll never make it either way because you're one of millions and who's going to pay attention to your crappy book anyway. I'm sick of it.

I'm sick of it because:

1. Nobody has the right to make you feel bad about your choices. Everyone's path is different, everyone's reasons for writing are different. Nobody should be judged for chosing their path and sticking with it.

2. Labels! FFS. If indie authors want to avoid the negative connotations that come with "self-published," who's business is that? Why does it matter? It's a word. It's not an offensive one, so who cares?

3. We're all writers, aren't we? Why does there have to be this divide when we're all essentially doing the same thing: writing a story we care about. Whether we choose to upload it to the Kindle or send it round to agents, why should that create any issues with any other writers?

I'm sorry, but I don't get it. I don't get why one choice is more valid than the other, I don't get why there has to be a competition to see who makes the most money the fastest, and I don't get why people can't feel proud of something they've laboured over for weeks and months - maybe years - just because they chose a different route to you. Indie, trad, self-published, e-published, small press, big six... I don't care. I'm not an indie writer. I'm not a trad writer. I'm not a small press writer. I'm just a writer and I'm bored of all the angst.

Comments

[six-old-cars.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I still feel the biggest problem with self-pub is not the high-and-mighty attitude of mainstream publishing, but the volume of badly-written stuff that would have been better off never being let out of the bag. If most self-pub books were half as good as a Naomi Clark novel I'd be happy to self-pub too. But most of what I've seen (and the small-press anthologies I've featured in) have not given me cause to raise my estimate of the validity of the choice.

But then, my success rate with publishers (or rather publications) I respect is 0% as yet, so perhaps I need to admit I'm only good enough for the lowest common denominator.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

I'm with you to a point. There's definitely room for improvement with some small presses (naming no names, but I think you know who I mean!). And yes, I've stumbled across some self-pubbed stuff that really isn't ready for the public...

On the other hand, my experiences with Queered Fiction have been stellar, and Damnation Books, whilst I have some reservations about certain things, have been great to work with too. Same with indie books - so far I've found more good than bad, but I guess the argument there is: I know what I like to read, I don't read much outside my chosen genre, so I'm likely to find what I want without much vetting beforehand.

And the other point is... there are some godawful tradiationally published books out there too!