Joined
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600 Posts
Someone in the comments put it the best.
"There’s a nugget of wisdom I once heard that goes like this: If you aim for perfection, you will never achieve it, but you will do well. If you aim for simply doing well, you will fall short and be mediocre. If you aim for mediocrity… well, you see where that’s going."
I see this as a business. I have budgeted money and I pay a lot of money to get my books edited by a professional, to get the covers designed well (because I'm rubbish at design). There are enough people who won't accept my books for review, who won't read them, who won't stock them in their shops, who won't countenance even trying them, and it's not just because I had the temerity to publish it myself. It's because some of my fellow self publishers see quality as optional. It's not. Not if we want to stick it to The Man. If we really want to level the playing field in publishing, we have to show that we're as good or better than trad. And if we have any respect for the people who buy our books, if we want them to buy another one, the least we can do is spell and punctuate our work properly. Sadly the people who don't bother are dragging us all down.
If someone writes a book they should be proud. It follows that, surely, after the blood sweat and tears they've put into producing it, that they would want to give it the best chance. A good cover, an edit and the like.
Perhaps I'm too old fashioned, too arts and crafts.
Cheers
MTM
"There’s a nugget of wisdom I once heard that goes like this: If you aim for perfection, you will never achieve it, but you will do well. If you aim for simply doing well, you will fall short and be mediocre. If you aim for mediocrity… well, you see where that’s going."
I see this as a business. I have budgeted money and I pay a lot of money to get my books edited by a professional, to get the covers designed well (because I'm rubbish at design). There are enough people who won't accept my books for review, who won't read them, who won't stock them in their shops, who won't countenance even trying them, and it's not just because I had the temerity to publish it myself. It's because some of my fellow self publishers see quality as optional. It's not. Not if we want to stick it to The Man. If we really want to level the playing field in publishing, we have to show that we're as good or better than trad. And if we have any respect for the people who buy our books, if we want them to buy another one, the least we can do is spell and punctuate our work properly. Sadly the people who don't bother are dragging us all down.
If someone writes a book they should be proud. It follows that, surely, after the blood sweat and tears they've put into producing it, that they would want to give it the best chance. A good cover, an edit and the like.
Perhaps I'm too old fashioned, too arts and crafts.
Cheers
MTM
