In The News – Articles Of Interest For Authors
I have to admit Barnes & Noble just frustrates me. I want them to succeed, I want there to be competition and a lot of choices with books and eBooks. But if you told me that Barnes & Noble was deliberately trying to fail, I would believe you. First they make affiliate advertising a horrible painful experience, and their support of self-publishing books is non-existent. on Digital Book World agrees and makes his case why Barnes & Noble should carry indie books.
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Barnes & Noble Should Carry Indie Books
An open letter has been making the rounds the last couple days that pits the self-publishing community against one of the banners of big corporate publishing.
Here’s an excerpt from indie author Cambria Herbert’s “An open letter to Barnes and Noble” (Emphasis is hers):
This isn’t just an angry letter because I got another form rejection. I’ve had many. I’ve also had many successes and my career doesn’t hinge on store placement. This is about change, and about asking for a chance to be equal.
I’ve been in this business a while now, I don’t know everything, but I do know some things. I know you have the capability of helping to lift up the talented writers who do ALL their own marketing, publishing and branding.
It’s time, Barnes and Noble. It’s time you step into the new era of publishing. It’s time you acknowledge there are good books out there that don’t just come out of big six [sic] publishers.
It’s time you recognize us.
What this all comes down to is respect. The self-publishing community is a passionate one, believing its authors have just as much of a right to publish a book as do authors who have traditional publishers. Moreover, many of them believe their mode of publishing is the right one.
At the end of the day, they just want to be treated as authors, not self-published authors.
As evidenced by the need for Herbert’s letter, there is still a significant stigma surrounding self-publishing and indie authors. Hell, I’ve been accused of perpetuating it myself.
But I don’t think that stigma is reduced when proponents of self-publishing say authors need to be writing several books a year. As one commenter on our interview with Hugh Howey wrote, “That’s not writing; that’s typing.”
What’s more, there are two types of self-published authors: those who write a manuscript, get the book proofread and professionally edited, have a cover professionally designed, create a marketing plan, etc; and those who don’t.