Features

Jane Friedman has a provocative post about self-publishing  that has the potential to rekindle age-old genre wars: whether or not genre is “serious” fiction. But that’s not really what she’s getting at. Her point is that there’s a different process for how much genre fiction is consumed, and this is how the self-publishing industry is evolving. She writes:

This model relies on a readership that consumes books like candy, or readers mostly interested in finding a next read as quickly and cheaply as possible. (We’re starting to see the impact of this cheap-read behavior: agents asking publishers to reduce

One of my jobs is to help other writers write well. But often, in order to do that, I first have to teach them to write badly.

Few things are more frightening than an empty sheet of paper (an empty refrigerator and an empty bank account are two that spring to mind, but let’s stick with the topic here, okay?). Many people totally choke when facing that pale monster. And that’s a completely rational response. Though not all are willing to admit it, even pros have this problem. I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that the majority of […]

It’s odd that the recent firestorm about paid reviews and unscrupulous self-publishers has actually rekindled my love of self-publishing. Ever since Amanda Hocking, the vibe around self-publishing has been money, money, money. On the one hand, I was grateful for this because it put self-publishing on the map: money talks. On the other hand: this is the worst determination of value and pretty much what’s wrong with the world, and publishing in general. The reason that I fled traditional publishing (after having a series of agents and traditional contracts) was because of the overemphasis on marketing and past sales. Publishing […]