tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post5956016247257804799..comments2024-03-27T23:59:01.850-07:00Comments on Writing About Writing (And Occasionally Some Writing): Control What People See When They Google YouChris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-13536554153583072422014-07-13T15:21:37.909-07:002014-07-13T15:21:37.909-07:00Legitimacy is absolutely one of the selling points...Legitimacy is absolutely one of the selling points for traditional publishing, but you're right that it's starting to be the less financially viable choice--publishing houses are going to have to compete with a new guard of writers who just want to be writers for a living and will be okay if they never go through a gatekeeper. <br /><br />I agree about most people publishing too soon, but I also think that continuum of quality has been mostly lacking in writing since the printing press. Writing has never had the equivalent of the street performer or the local theater, and now it actually can again. I find that to be a good thing even if it means we have to find reviewers we trust to be honest or read someone's blog for a while before we drop a few bucks on their novels.Chris Brecheenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-50446380736497040922014-07-13T15:14:15.675-07:002014-07-13T15:14:15.675-07:00I do regular Google checks of my name because I...I do regular Google checks of my name because I'm a teacher and I'm worried about what my students will find/if they make a mock-page of me which I will have to make them take down.<br /><br />I kind of want to go through the gatekeeper process, though, because in my experience most of the people who publish themselves are publishing too early. They either can't write yet or they don't take their books through the editing process sufficiently, and their books are poor. Then they get all their friends to give them five star reviews so it becomes very difficult to tell if a book is any good (thank god for the free 10% sample!). And once you start putting poor content out on the Internet, people will be less likely to buy your stuff when it's actually decent. There's a point, I think, to the rejection process - it prods a writer into learning what s/he needs to do to fix the work that's being submitted. (Seriously - yesterday I saw someone formally announce the release of her book and the blurb she sent around for marketing purposes had basic grammar and punctuation errors.)<br /><br />And I think there's still kind of a cachet to being published through a publishing house. People still see novelists who get published (as opposed to self-published) as being more 'real' or 'professional,' even if they take home less in royalties. I wonder how that will change in the next ten years. Several of the published authors I read continue to get their novels published through publishing houses, but they're uploading short stories via KDP and pocketing all the money from that directly.Terranoreply@blogger.com