Features

In The New Yorker’s current Summer Fiction issue (June 8 & 15, 2009), in an essay that is called “Can You Teach Creative Writing?” on the contents page and titled “Show or Tell: Should Creative Writing be Taught?,” on the page where it begins, the critic Louis Menand makes great claims for the general excellence of contemporary American fiction. His essay springs in part from, and is in part a review of, Mark McGurl’s The Program Era (Harvard, 2009). The resultant double-layered piling on of superlatives from a famous critic and quotes from a book published by a still […]

On the surface, self publishing sounds like a really bad idea.  Despite denials to the contrary, it seems that one of the biggest fears in the back of people’s minds is that of supply and demand.  With self publishing we have more and more books in the marketplace, but most people don’t seem to have very much time to read.  They are on the internet, playing video games, watching television, listening to music, running errands, working, eating, sleeping, possibly having sex occasionally since the species must go on.

But when are they having time to read?  It seems less and […]

People say that I shouldn’t get into these debates online about self-publishing because those who are so vehemently opposed to self-publishing are never going to change their mind. But I like a good debate and I really do believe that for the stigma around self-publishing to fade it’s important to chip away at the criticism in debates like this one. The writer’s basic premise is that self-publishing is deserving of its stigma because:

1. There is no quality control of self-published books so book customers are led to buy inferior work.
2. Self-publishers are naturally bad writers who just couldn’t hack

Read Part 1.

“Jeeves. There’s a strange gentlemen at the door suggesting publishers should stop giving authors advances.”

“Wooster! How ridiculous. The idea is simply preposterous! Send him away and finish preparing my Eggs Benedict and ironing my morning newspaper.”

“Actually, Jeeves, I found the idea rather novel and somewhat intriguing. So much so—I’ve invited the gentleman into the parlour for tea and a light scone with warm butter. I do hope you don’t mind.”

“You invited him into the house of Jeeves Publishing & Sons & Illegitimate Sons!”

“Yes, Jeeves. You seemed wholly perturbed. Am I to be […]

I am going to say something which may ruffle a few feathers, both from traditionally published authors and authors who have self-published but are looking to break into mainstream publishing through their own endeavours.

Your prospective publisher declares ‘NO ADVANCE OR BE DAMNED’.

Would you politely decline the publisher’s contract offer without any advance and show yourself to the door? Perhaps you would if the offer came from ACME Publishing or some other publishing shack up the road. Let’s say the offer came from an imprint of Pan Macmillan or HarperCollins. Would you then stop and think twice?

I believe […]

The impulse about Amazon is to think that they’re a monolithic corporate entity that may be up to no good.  This is the root of a lot of the criticism of the Kindle, which people criticize as possibly monopolizing the ebook market: consumers will be forced to buy books from only the Amazon outlet.  This is what happens when a retailer enters the world of technology.  Given that Amazon allows Kindle books to be read on the iPhone, they are at least not forcing people into buying their own device.

On the whole, Amazon’s Kindle venture is positive.  Though there’s […]

The question of choosing to self-publish for an author is better understood if the question is turned on its head. An author should always ask themselves the question rhetorically.

‘Why do I want to self publish?’

I mean have you not heard all the bad press self publishing gets? That it is just pure vanity and any author solution service you choose will just take your cash, as much as they can wean out of you, then take you for a very short ride down the self-publishing boulevard of broken dreams. I have been researching author solution companies for my […]