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The essential problem here is that publishers do, it turns out, actually fulfil some useful roles. Publicist is one of the major ones. (Editor and designer are

The essential problem here is that publishers do, it turns out, actually fulfil some useful roles. Publicist is one of the major ones. (Editor and designer are two other important, undervalued skills that publishers traditionally take on.) Having self-published video online for one and a half decades now, I've acquired quite a bit of knowledge of the publicity/marketing side of things (enough that I use it to fund my filmmaking, in fact). That knowledge how I gain an audience for my films - it takes time, sure, but it also takes knowledge, skill, and often, money. I see a lot of filmmakers, comic artists and novelists attempting to self-publish without even realising they need that skill, let alone attempting to develop it or spending time practising it. That generally doesn't go too well. Charles Stross has an excellent article on why he takes exactly the opposite route, being conventionally published, precisely because he doesn't want to have to be or manage publicists, designers, editors and so on: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/03/why-i-dont-self-publish.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/03/why-i-do...

jonnathanson 13y ago
"The essential problem here is that publishers do, it turns out, actually fulfil some useful roles. Publicist is one of the major ones. (Editor and designer are two other important, undervalued skills that publishers traditionally take on.)" Exactly, and these roles are a lot more crucial than most would-be self publishing authors take into consideration before getting started. Amanda Hocking, one of the more famous of the self-publishers in recent years, decided to switch to a major publisher. Her rationale was that marketing, publicity, design, etc., had become 99% of her job, relegating writing to 1%. She wanted the reverse. She loves to write; she is less interested in running a publishing startup (which is, essentially, what a self-published author needs to be doing to be successful). I think it's a very interesting insight.

jonnathanson 13y ago

"The essential problem here is that publishers do, it turns out, actually fulfil some useful roles. Publicist is one of the major ones. (Editor and designer are two other important, undervalued skills that publishers traditionally take on.)" Exactly, and these roles are a lot more crucial than most would-be self publishing authors take into consideration before getting started. Amanda Hocking, one of the more famous of the self-publishers in recent years, decided to switch to a major publisher. Her rationale was that marketing, publicity, design, etc., had become 99% of her job, relegating writing to 1%. She wanted the reverse. She loves to write; she is less interested in running a publishing startup (which is, essentially, what a self-published author needs to be doing to be successful). I think it's a very interesting insight.