Leaves of Grass question

I don't think there is anything wrong with publishing your works yourself. However, there is great benefit in the marketing aspect a publishing house can offer an author.

It's terribly difficult to become a successful writer. Publishers have a foot up on mere writing mortals in that they have contacts and tools for promotion and sales that most of us can never hope to have.

As for your question at the end of your statement, I'm confused.

Are you asking if all self-published authors will steal Emerson quotes and use them without permission? If so, then I would reply that yes, some people will steal quotes hoping to boost their own sales.

If you are asking what to expect from self-published authors, then I would reply that I want the same thing from professionally published authors: integrity, good story, awesome sentence structure, and no typos.

Good luck!

I think the self publishing movement is gaining some real solid contributors. I think the 'Bone' graphic novels were self published, as well as the 'Akiko' sci-fi series. Other books like 'Wool' are rising and getting attention. I agree that the quality of the work goes a long way in selling it. And the promotion issue is still a big one. That's one of the things a ready made publisher can still provide.
Do you think the e-book trend is helping or hurting self publishing?

There are two books I really like that are self published. One is Wool by Hugh Howey. I have read two of the three "Wool Novels and they are both disturbing and thought provoking. I think they are quite good. The second author is Rick Brown the author of "Naked Sunfish, Best Bites". The second one can be found on Lulu and the first on Amazon. While the Wool series is better known, Best Bites is a wry commentary of our communities and our families. There are several more that I have read but They do not come to mind right now.

Well--but first of all, I don't think you can compare the self-published book from the pre-internet era to self-publishing in this new age of e-book publishing. That's lumping two phenomenon together which should be discussed as two distinct topics.

I have read that Virginia Woolfe (e or no e?) and Oscar Wilde were self published. And they are respected. Although, Feliks has a really valid point - that they were self publishing in a very different environment than today's. Self publishing used to be called (I don't know if it still is) Vanity Publishing, but in the Internet age it should probably be called that more than ever.

I think the real reason for the stigma attached to self publishing is that the author appears to skip the editing step of the publishing process, whether or not he actually does. If you go through an mainstream publisher, you have to have your work approved before it gets put on the shelves. If you self publish, you might have had the best editor in the world review your work, but unless you make this common knowledge, people may assume that no editing has been done, and conclude that the work is "of no merit whatsoever". (Well, at least the people who came up with the term "Vanity Publishing".)

The same goes for the "legitimacy" of the publishing house - a lot of it is image and what people assume about other people. (Not to imply that some publishers do not put more work than others into being discerning and thorough.)

In any case, I am with Jeni on this - if the story is well-written and engaging, then I do not care who published it.

Virginia Woolf did indeed publish several of her own books, through a press she and her husband founded (Hogarth Press, as I recall), and they were very happy with the sales of 2,000 copies for one title alone. She didn't expect to have a huge audience.

But self-publishing today is different in that publishing itself is so much more accessible because of ebook publishing. Writers who self-publish can pay a modest sum to an online service for editing and design services, and have a published book in a month or less. The quality is still up to the writer--no one is vetting these books--and there are plenty of readers who have little or no judgment. They can't tell a good sentence from a bad one.

For other writers, self-publishing is an opportunity to publish something that won't appeal to editors at commercial houses. Some of these books are as good as anything you can find in a regular bookstore of commercially publishing books.

What self-publishing has really done is flood the market with books that the reader must now investigate and vet. Readers no longer have a known publisher to rely on, to reassure them that the basic quality of the book is good.

I have been published by commercial houses, started my own publishing house, and self-published one of my novels. However you go about it, the writer should understand the process and how much work it is.