Comments on: David Carnoy: Self-Publishing Is Minor-League — and That’s Good

By: catharine

catharine — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 21:12:17 +0000

Interesting piece and rather encouraging. I just (self) published my first book. I would love to have it published by a “real” publisher but do not have the time to deal with sending it out so on and so forth. It’s easier to just self publish and hope maybe it gets picked up. This article is proof that can happen. Very encouraging.

Thanks for sharing!

By: Richard Mc Sweeney

Richard Mc Sweeney — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:09:17 +0000

I think self-publishing satisfies the conviction that a writer knows in his or her heart that their writing is of quality, and as such deserves to be out here. Also it provides an opportunity for personal achievement. It is a question of who will best let me continue to do what I love doing, namely writing. Self-publishing allows me to get the work out there and get working straight away on the next one. I love the feeling of naivety that it gives me in that I truly believe each work is better than the previous one, and that my latest one will definitely be on the bestseller list. Voltaire composed more than 20,000 letters and wrote more than 2,000 books and pamphlets! How did he do it? By putting in the time; by having as little distractions as possible. Let the search engines bring our self-published books to those who are in need of them. It is their job, and they do it ever so well. Let the financial take care of itself. What’s most important is to write, and to write quality when the season of inspiration is with one. If a traditional publisher can assure me that my season of inspiration won’t be infringed upon, then I would of course be willing to consider their offers. However, up to now self-publishing is the one who is winning out for me. It is major league in the sense that it doesn’t call me away from my time and place of creativity. And that’s great. Thank you so much for this very fine article.

By: Donna Long

Donna Long — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:02:58 +0000

An incredibly useful article. Thanks to you both. Self-publishing and building a reader base is what I am working on now. The idea that I can make more money self-publishing without the big publishers, is very appealing to me. I don’t need my name to be a household word or to be on bestsellers lists. Not that there is anything wrong with that…

By: Keir Graff

Keir Graff — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:41:21 +0000

I think that, in reality, very few artists have really been able to stay in the ivory tower–even geniuses usually have to hustle a bit to make their own names. But it’s also true that writing and self-marketing are two totally different skills. And, for writers who have a hard time finding the time to write, the time needed to self-publish well may make the whole prospect an impossibility.

By: Joel

Joel — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:48:34 +0000

Interesting. I would imagine this takes a lot of pounding the pavement, to get the word out about your work. Further breaks down the idea of the Artiste as someone who can simply disseminate his/her genius from an ivory tower, no?

By: Daniel Kraus

Daniel Kraus — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:34:02 +0000

This should be required reading for all self-publishers (self-publishees?). Good stuff.