There's a discussion thread on Goodreads about the self-publishing stigma. I responded:

When the painter Matisse showed his first non-representational figures, the French audience tried to scratch them. He started a movement.

When Carl Dryer, director, made his extreme close-up film, "Joan of Arc", his backers hated it. Now, every movie and television show employs this technique.

The courage to create and put that work out into the world is enourmous. And then, how to market it requires a brain stretch into things like code($#&), widgets(!) and a campaign that rivals any presidential election.

Who wouldn't love for Doubleday or Random House to call you up and say, "Hey. We'll publish your book!"

If that day happens to me, I'm going to know what I'm talking about. It won't be innocent-little-me with big-daddy publisher. I'll know to have a lawyer, to look at the marketing and distribution plan and negotiate the royalties for world-wide this and digital that.

And so will you.

Here's what's great about self-publishing. My book isn't sitting in a drawer next to the pile of rejection letters. It's swimming around in an ocean of other self-published works, but so what? The book is real.

When people say to me (with that pursed lip thing),
"Oh, you published it yourself?" or "Oh, it's not in hard copy?" I say, "Where's your book, bitch?"