By Porter Anderson | @Porter_Anderson
From November 10, 2011
Part of my series of columns on publishing, Writing on the Ether, appearing each Thursday at JaneFriedman.com
One short golden age
Careful. We are a destination for detonation this week, my Ethernaut. That plate is hot, these gases are flammable, and those matches are rattling in the box. Don your tinfoil computing suit. I don’t want to have to hose you down.
Here we have mild-mannered author Tobias Buckell:
Imagine my disgust to see the loud-mouthed “if you don’t self publish you’re an idiot” crowd of Michael Stackpole and Barry Eisler and J.A Konrath (remember, Konrath and Eisler work with Amazon, they don’t self publish as such) thumping themselves on the chest and saying ‘if you don’t self publish you’re a house slave.’ … Three white dudes, screaming about how it’s really *them* being oppressed … how tone deaf. How self involved. How dripping full of loud, male privilege.
He titles that one a demure Self publishing doesn’t mean you have to be a raging f–k wad
Speaking of Barry Eisler, he’s as articulate as all get-out in comments on the new Mike Shatzkin post. This is Eisler:
Personally, I don’t think there ever was a time of “pure” indie publishing. After all, Amanda Hocking needed Amazon’s, B&N’s, and Smashwords’ distribution to get her books to readers—she didn’t sell through her own website. And even if she had sold through her own website, she would have been reliant on her website hosting company, on PayPal for billing services, etc.
Then there’s Kristen Lamb, lone star, fleecing the fuzz to warn us Beware the Social Media Snuggie–One Size Does NOT Fit All:
As awesome as indie presses are, logic dictates that most of them won’t have the manpower to help us in promotion and marketing like Random House or Penguin. We don’t get book placement in major chain bookstores or Wal-mart or Costco. We need a VERY LARGE PLATFORM. Sure, the indie press will help, but the lion’s share of the burden is ours.
Lamb adds, “Pay attention to Chuck Wendig. He makes the second-oldest-profession-in-the-world look good and is not above showing a little leg.”
I can’t look. But you can read the rest of this post here at JaneFriedman.com