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The Slush Pile of Self-Publishing

5/27/2013

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I've recently listened to a lot of arguments for and against the wisdom of hiring an editor for your self-published work. Some authors speak strongly in favor of the benefits editors bring to their books; others say professional editing is an unnecessary expense and argue that readers will forgive errors in spelling and grammar. For me this illustrates the powerful effects of the ease of self-publishing. It is now possible to offer a book for the public to buy that has merits in your eyes but has not been vetted by an independent entity. The result is that the great mass of self-published books is something of a giant slush pile that the reader (instead of an editor at a publishing house) now gets to wade through.

I've read some very, very good self-published books that seem to be having difficulty getting noticed above the background of so many other self-published books, even after having done all of the "self-marketing" things recommended by advocates of self-publishing, and I think this is a symptom of over-saturation in self-publishing. There are simply too many books available and no way for the reader to sieve through the mass to find the best. There is no mechanism to take the place of the big pub editor as an indication of a level of professionalism and base-line quality. I've heard arguments that it should be left to the readers: if your book's any good, the readers will find it and buy it. At this point, I think we can all agree that this isn't necessarily true.

I hope the self-publishing model comes up with a medium between the free-for-all of current self-publishing and the eye-of-the-needle model that big publishing represented for a hundred years.
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Lists of Infinite Undoneness

5/14/2013

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When I fumble all the balls and plates and chain saws I try to juggle, when I toss and turn all night with the stress-hound's teeth in my heel, when the shit hits the fan, the windshield meets the bug, and everything goes to hell, I make lists.

Heinlein said it: Finish what you start. And I have many too many drafted-but-unrevised, outlined-but-undrafted, and rejected-with-good-advice pieces gathering electronic dust. So I've made a list motivationally titled Butt in Chair and gotten started. And I'm checking it off, baby, checking it off.

You can't take me downstream, stupid river of shit. 'Cause I have a paddle!
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Death Comes to All Dogs

5/7/2013

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And sometimes that's a good thing.

I want to mark the passing of Tinkerbelle the Incontinent, Methuselah of Dogs, Yorkie of Questionable Provenance. She was adopted (by a parent who was not me) because of the enthusiasm of daughters undeterred by her single eye, complete loss of hearing, and inability to be house trained. She was petted, whose bed she slept in was argued about, she was walked, and she was loved. But as she grew older and subject to frequent indoor defecation, loss of motor control, and seizures, she became stinkier and somewhat less approachable as a pet. So it was the son, responsible as all oldest children inevitably are, who became her caretaker in her dotage, the kid to whom we all cried, "Ewwww! Dog poop!"

We honestly expected this day, every day, for the past year. We debated: was it time to put her to sleep? But she bumbled around as enthusiastically as ever, even though she had no real interaction with the world beyond enjoying her food. But still, when she died and we realized she would soil the carpets no more, we were sad as well as relieved. Good-bye, Tinkerbelle. We tried to give you as good a life as we could, and I'm gratified that you stepped in your water bowl, turned over your food, and got lost behind the t.v. on your last night just as happily as every other night, and died in the warm sun and the summer grass.
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    Torah Cottrill

    I read. I write. And sometimes I talk about it.

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