Monday, September 20, 2010

Viva la revolution baby…


Okay, so when I first heard of ‘self publishing’ the old quote of “She/he who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client” came to mind. Why? Well it’s all about knowledge and knowing how to apply it in order to succeed. If you have no knowledge you have the amazing ability to bugger stuff up. This is why most writers latch on to a publishing house in order to get their epic saga to print. The idea of having no clue and being unaided in getting a book out there is daunting. But then there’s the flipside. This writing gig can be a minefield. How so? Dodgy publishing houses, suspect royalties and in-house fighting between writers/editors/publishers. Yeesh. Go with that or take a crack at self-pubbing?

Essentially writers are quite mad. No really. Who else is going to sit on their arse for hours talking to themselves as they bang out a stream of vaguely coherent words into a computer? Yet as mad as we are we retain stuff to be used later on…like in stories…or in business. We watch, we gossip, we listen. We look around and think ‘well crap, they suck as a publisher. I can do what they’re doing.’ Let’s face it – most of the e-book publishing companies out there were started by people who took a chance and had a go. So why couldn’t anyone do that? You don’t have to be a genius – just a risk taker.

So – thinking about self-pubbing? Go for it. As for revolutions? I love a good stousch. Put my name down for the next one…

Amarinda Jones
Penn Halligan
www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Be daring...read an Amarinda book

4 comments:

  1. I totally hear you. There is no special test you have to pass to start a business. It's the market that decides. So if somebody clueless self-publishes, who cares? It has nothing to do with the success or failure of anyone else who makes that same choice.

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  2. Thanks for putting it all into perspective ...

    "Essentially writers are quite mad. No really. Who else is going to sit on their arse for hours talking to themselves as they bang out a stream of vaguely coherent words into a computer?" !!

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  3. that was my first thought as well. I used to argue pretty vehemently against it. But I've seen a lot of evidence the tide is changing, and I'm getting more and more enthusiastic about the idea.

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