Features

A guest post on David Gaughran’s site covers the new world of bundled box sets. A good idea on the surface, and very profitable, but also problematic. She addresses this in the post:

With the attention, of course, also comes the inevitable criticism: that 2012 was the year of the freebie, 2013 the year of the 99¢ book, and now 2014 is the year of the 99¢ box. All cheap marketing ploys that will devalue the written word and destroy an industry.

Pretty much. Next paragraph:

Our business ledger, of course, says otherwise. Despite having built our assisted-self-publishing micropress

Are self-publishers dumb? Don’t answer that.

Recently, the debate has arisen again about genre vs. literary self-publishing (as if there’s some kind of war between the two) with Chris Meadows gloating on Teleread:

Maybe because, I dunno, nobody wants to read them? I read to get away from the real world. I don’t want to read more stories about the real world.

Anyway, I come to wonder: after all these years of sneering at genre’s low-brow nature, is literary fiction about to die off because its writers couldn’t make the same transition to self-publishing that genre’s writers could? That

With the increasing emphasis on e-books and the ease of digital publishing, you may think the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” doesn’t really apply anymore. After all, a book cover displayed on the screen of a tablet doesn’t hold the same weight as it does on the front of a hardback book.

However, data suggests we shouldn’t forget that old saying just yet. A recent study by Voxburner surveyed people ages 16 to 24 on their reading preferences. The findings were surprising — 62 percent preferred print books over e-books. Think about that statistic for a minute […]

Mick Rooney has a great post up at the Independent Publishing Magazine: Is self-publishing creating a hierarchical community for its authors?

So what’s bugging me about self-publishing now? Aren’t we experiencing a self-publishing boom with little to complain about?

There is an increasing hierarchy developing in the self-publishing community and it shows no sign of disappearing anytime soon. It’s the hierarchy of the true savvy self-publishers and those authors who choose an assisted self-publishing service. I’ve even witnessed the line in the sand drawn between authors who have their own publishing imprint name and block of ISBNs registered with Bowker/Nielsen,

Chuck Wendig has a great post up now: Self-Publishing is Not the Minor Leagues

It’s time to take a long look at the culture surrounding self-publishing. We’ve moved past the time where we need to champion the cause, okay? We’ve seen enough success in that space and have plenty of positive examples it’s time to stop acting as cheerleaders.

And it’s time to start acting as critics.

The attitude that pervades self-publishing is that it’s a good place to test your craft, to hone your work. We are reminded constantly that the cream floats to the top, that all the