Henry Baum

Yes, there is a connection.  As I’ve been writing about recently, the impulse to criticize self-publishing seems seriously misguided.  At its core, self-publishing is a way for everyone – everyone – to be able to freely express themselves.  That the output is mostly bad (which you can’t determine unless you read thousands of books) is mostly a non-issue.  It may be unfortunate that self-published books get diluted by work that’s not very well-conceived, but self-publishing is a system where every single person has a voice, no one’s disenfranchised.  That is something to be celebrated – not repeatedly attacked.

“Star Trek” […]

The post about the ways that people criticize self-publishing brings up the idea that a traditionally published book has a stamp of approval and so traditionally published books are more reliable.  This is true.  Some amount of vetting does count for something, but in an age when it’s more difficult to get published, it is not the only measure of a book’s worth.

What’s also problematic is that writers may take this one step further and consider that their writing is indeed better because it has been accepted by an editor.  I don’t want to limit the idea that getting […]

Part of the reason I’m so attracted to self-publishing is that it’s so reviled.  It’s for misfits.  It truly is the publishing version of punk rock – something that anybody could do and something that people snubbed their noses at.  Something that inspired conservative outrage.  Really, when you boil it down, self-publishing is a very positive development: the ability for writers who were not able to get a book deal in a highly competitive industry to be able to find readers.  It’s totally democratic and a great example of free expression.  Why you’d want to crap over something that has […]

The last stigma that may need to fade about self-publishing is not that self-published books are bad, but that self-publishing services are all scam outfits, draining unsuspecting writers of their money. My guess is that many more self-publishers know that the investment in self-publishing is going to be lost money.  It’s like buying a couch – you’re never going to make back the money from buying that couch, but it’s a nice and useful object to have in your house.

Publishing a book is a good deal more personal than that, but I would imagine that a lot of self-publishers […]