There’s much debate among writers whether to self-publish or go traditional. Both have their merits and it’s not always clear whether you’ll make a buzz in either case. If you got the money for traditional it might be worth the sweat you’ll undergo in self-publishing.
Self-publishers are often considered as hacks because their writing hasn’t been found good enough to be published traditionally, so it goes. But arguments are that it’s not always the case and traditional publishing does also produce some hacks with poorly edited novels.
I just saw a very interesting post at “The Truth About Writing” by Fred Charles entitled “Why Other Writers Annoy Me: The Self-Publishing Stigma and Other Ranting”. Fred has a pertinent stand about this issue. The comments that go with it are thought provoking too.
Incidentally there’s another blog post “self-publishing” linked to it at “Shamus Writes” with some quite interesting comments too.
I’d recommend these for anyone contemplating publishing.
Mauritian residing in Rodrigues, Amanoola Khayrattee (pen name Alfa King) is contributing writer and journalist to La Gazette Mag de l’océan indien and This Week News Mauritius.
Retired, former meteorological cadre, trade unionist and OSH consultant, Amanoola has written for in-house union and other journals, publications and magazines. He runs two blogs since 2007: “Alfa King Memories”, and “Le Journal d’Alfa King”. When he is not reading or writing, he is on a 10+ km daily hike in anticipation of his monthly trails.
Amanoola may be reached at [email protected].
Thanks for linking to my article. Let me state that I do realize that a lot of the self-published stuff out there is unprofessional, but I’d hate to see a viable publishing alternative die just because of this stigmata that is really only prevelant in the writing/publishing community.
Thanks for those links, Alfa King – I’ll take a look when the kids are in bed.
I personally would prefer to go the ‘traditional route’, although that’s not to say I would never self-publish, especially when there’s the likes of http://www.lulu.com/, who make the process look very easy.
DJ
Thanks for the links Alfaking, I was thinking about self-publishing as an option – good to do some research on it.