Heh, don't get me wrong, you're sharing lots of useful stuff.
It's just that just about every resource on writing gets to the "don't spend money on vanity press" point fairly quickly. I would not have thought you needed to repeat it. But based on some of the responses you've gotten, I guess it must be.
I can't claim expertise in this. But it does seem to me that if one wants to learn a profession, a key method is to talk to people in that profession to learn what they do. I know many published authors, and what they have in common is that they are, well, published. And as far as I can see the way to get published is to deal with, well, publishers.
It's just like, I know lots of people who have succeeded in business for themselves. And I know people who got into Amway. The latter are not the former. The activity of selling a few dozen units to family and close friends isn't really a business, it's just a way for parasitic corporations to get money by trading on people's personal relationships.
Everything I know about publishing makes it sound like actual work. I can empathize with authors who want to do publishing to get more value per unit, but it seems to me like just a distraction from writing. I understand things like logistics, printing, and marketing, but none of these publishing activities has much to do with the artistic act of writing. Even for successful authors (e.g. Piers Anthony), the books they publish under their own control aren't as good as the ones they publish under other editors, and even if the books were as good, they are received by the market with some suspicion because of the appearance of lack of quality control.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 10:20 pm (UTC)It's just that just about every resource on writing gets to the "don't spend money on vanity press" point fairly quickly. I would not have thought you needed to repeat it. But based on some of the responses you've gotten, I guess it must be.
I can't claim expertise in this. But it does seem to me that if one wants to learn a profession, a key method is to talk to people in that profession to learn what they do. I know many published authors, and what they have in common is that they are, well, published. And as far as I can see the way to get published is to deal with, well, publishers.
It's just like, I know lots of people who have succeeded in business for themselves. And I know people who got into Amway. The latter are not the former. The activity of selling a few dozen units to family and close friends isn't really a business, it's just a way for parasitic corporations to get money by trading on people's personal relationships.
Everything I know about publishing makes it sound like actual work. I can empathize with authors who want to do publishing to get more value per unit, but it seems to me like just a distraction from writing. I understand things like logistics, printing, and marketing, but none of these publishing activities has much to do with the artistic act of writing. Even for successful authors (e.g. Piers Anthony), the books they publish under their own control aren't as good as the ones they publish under other editors, and even if the books were as good, they are received by the market with some suspicion because of the appearance of lack of quality control.