POD Publishing: Why Do It? And … Why Not?

This post, from Mel Keegan, originally appeared on The World According To Mel blog on 2/14/09.

Writing has been likened to bashing your head against a wall — with one exception: it’s not so great when you stop.

I guess this is because writing is in your blood, something you do because it’s … what you do; and the fact is, you’ll do it whether anyone is reading what you write, or paying you, or not!  Writing is a vocation, like religion, medicine, the law.

Publishing is a different can o’ worms (or kettle of fish, if you prefer). Publishing is like jabbing yourself in the foot with a sharp stick. In terms of the pain and anguish you’re inflicting upon your anatomy, it’s about the same … but it can actually do you more physical damage! Let’s face it, if you give your head a good enough bash on the wall the first time out, you’re going to knock yourself right out — and I ought to know! I did this last week! (See also Gay novelist, battered and fried.) Technically, you could jab yourself with a sharp stick enough times to do a whole lot more damage —

Which is where the publishing analogy becomes utterly perfect. Publishers are gluttons for punishment, especially the self-marketing variety. They could stop anytime. But, do they? No. We go on, bashing our heads (and jabbing our feet) when we know that every single day we’re going to be up against unutterable rubbish like this:

Six reasons that self-publishing is the scourge of the book world.

…and I cannot tell you the degree to which this article is wrong in its sweeping statements. The blood boils. Consider this:

1. No one vetts self-published books, allowing even the most puerile piles of crap to adopt the guise of polished, professional prose.

Point one: Mr. Tom Barlow, you must stop generalizing on this first line. All self-published works are not the same, and some are vetted to destruction point. Some will be proofread many more times, by more pairs of eyeballs, than could plausibly be assigned to them by "small" publishing houses who can’t afford a large enough editorial staff to do a proper job. (Point two: drop the alliteration. It makes you sound like an over-inflated idiot.)

2. Self-publishing kills the drive for writers to improve their craft. The artificial, undeserved success they will achieve will trap them in mediocrity.

This is such utter piffle, I was speechless for a moment. Mr. Barlow, who told you this? You were sold a priceless line of BS. The drive to improve one’s craft is born in a writer, and continues to flow in his or her veins irrespective of whether they’re published (slim chance) or not.

Editors do little to inspire writers to improve, because the process of editing any but the bestselling author is so robotized, so impersonal. You mail your manuscript in; a year later you get the galleys back, and a few days to read through them. You have no real idea of what was done to the work, or why, you just check it for errors and mail it back as fast as humanly possible.

And what gremlin whispered into Tom Barlow’s naive ear, that a self-publishing author of a "puerile pile of crap" is going to achieve any kind of success whatsoever? Does he think books sell themselves? Does he honestly believe readers will buy a book without having read at least 10% of it as a free download, seen the cover at full-size, and read numerous reviews, either online or in the print media?

Any copies sold, anywhere, any time, are the result of massive amounts of hard marketing work by the author, and before it could start, said author had to have a real, solid work to go out there and sell. The rubbish he’s describing exists — by the wagonload — on Amazon, on Lulu, and "wherever books are sold." The point he’s missing is this: "puerile piles of crap" DO NOT SELL COPIES. Their authors do not enjoy success, artificial or otherwise, and what traps them in mediocrity is their own — mediocrity.

Read the rest of the post on The World According To Mel blog.