This post is several months old, but it’s well worth re-posting because it’s a brutal, and hilarious, look at the lack of quality in the self-publishing market.
Dear Self-Published Word Badgers,
I’d like to take a little time out to commend you for your intrepid publishing spirit! And by “commend you,” I mean, “slap you about the head and neck with your own bludgeoning shame.”
—
Some of you should be really quite floored by the quality — or, rather, the sucking maw of quality, a veritable black hole of hope and promise that leeches the dreams from the minds of little girls sleeping and replaces those dreams with nightmares where unicorns are stabbed repeatedly by interlopers on icy sidewalks and left to whimper and bleat until the police come and finally end their misery with a single round from a service revolver bang – that your work puts out into the world.
For the whole article, which I highly recommend, check out TerribleMinds.com, or just click here.
Tagged with: Chuck Wendig • Terrible Minds • Top Pick
Please keep in mind that comments are moderated and rel="nofollow" is in use. So, please do not use a spammy keyword or a domain as your name, or it will be deleted. Let us have a personal and meaningful conversation instead.
This is why I don’t self-publish. Or publish at all, for that matter.
Don’t get so down on yourself. I haven’t thought about stabbing unicorns while reading your work for weeks.
I have, though.
He nailed it. What makes self-publishing different from “indie” artworks in other forms is that the most untalented, illiterate person on the planet can sit down by himself and puke out three hundred pages of barely readable dreck, and then punch a few buttons and it’s on the shelf.
Some of those guys actually make a few bucks off that trash.
I made a few bucks off Tales of the Lore Valley back in the day. Now that I’ve gone back through and given it a facelift, I hope to make a few more bucks.
Kris, you should turn Lore Valley into your literary Iphone. Re-write it every year with subtle improvements, and see if you can get the same people to buy it over and over again.
Why mess with a proven business model?
I just ‘liked’ your comment.
Aside form the basis of the subject, I am in awe of your sentence (85 words) beginning, ” Some of you should” and ending ” into the world.” You are great at those “grabbing” first sentences. I love that one.