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Personally, and this is my opinion and in no way should be taken as anything but that, I think dead tree is going the way of the dodo. I'm not all that interested in dead tree publishing.
Now, I'm not gonna sit here and blow smoke up your ass and say if some dead tree house wanted to hand me a check to publish my stuff that I would turn it down. I would take that check and be happy about it.
However, I'm not actively trying to go that route for a couple reasons.
1. I think the face of publishing is changing and self publishing and ebooks are here to stay. Dead tree is hurting. I mean, Borders closed, right? Publishing houses trying to sell traditional books will never go completely out, I wouldn't think, but they are going to take a lot of hits in a lot of areas. And I'm not going to sweat trying to hitch my cart to an ailing horse.
2.I think it's huge that anyone can tell their story the way they want and not have to write to please a publishing house. Their work can stand or fall on it's own merit.
3. Let's face it, I'm writing historical romance. I'm not writing fine literature. A hundred years from now, nobody's going to be teaching my crap in a college English course. I don't have any delusions there. I could go the dead tree route, compete with a million other people doing the same thing, get INCREDIBLY lucky and get a contract, and then my book sits on a shelf for a very limited time before it gets tossed onto the clearance rack (If I'm lucky) and cleared away for the next round of bodice ripping potboilers to come through. Ebooks don't have short self life of paper ones. I have a chance to sell as long as I'm motivated to sell it. I'm not at the publishing house's whim, at at my own.
4. The book I've written is not the only book I have in me. I have written 140,000+words and counting. I can do this pretty much until I drop dead. I'm hardly shooting my only bullet by doing this.
Don't forget, there was a self published ebook recently added to Amazon's million seller list. This guy is basically waving his ass at the traditional publishing world.
So I don't know if they'll decide you're untouchable if you self publish. It's exactly what I intend to do, and I could care less if they decide that about me. They've lost so much power over writers and the creative process, I don't consider their opinion all that relevant.
I also don't consider that getting a traditional contract to be any sort of validation of anyone's skill as a writer. What sealed my opinion of this and every other point I have made here is that one night I discovered a writer so terrible, so amateurish, so insultingly AWFUL that his novels read like fanfiction written by twelve years olds. I can't remember the dude's name (I'll ask the husband in the morning) but this writer is not only published on dead tree, not only is he popular, but he's got a big damn contract to produce more crap! He's written something like eight or more books! So you can't even let the idea that a publisher gives you the nod stroke your ego at this point.
Now, I'm not gonna sit here and blow smoke up your ass and say if some dead tree house wanted to hand me a check to publish my stuff that I would turn it down. I would take that check and be happy about it.
However, I'm not actively trying to go that route for a couple reasons.
1. I think the face of publishing is changing and self publishing and ebooks are here to stay. Dead tree is hurting. I mean, Borders closed, right? Publishing houses trying to sell traditional books will never go completely out, I wouldn't think, but they are going to take a lot of hits in a lot of areas. And I'm not going to sweat trying to hitch my cart to an ailing horse.
2.I think it's huge that anyone can tell their story the way they want and not have to write to please a publishing house. Their work can stand or fall on it's own merit.
3. Let's face it, I'm writing historical romance. I'm not writing fine literature. A hundred years from now, nobody's going to be teaching my crap in a college English course. I don't have any delusions there. I could go the dead tree route, compete with a million other people doing the same thing, get INCREDIBLY lucky and get a contract, and then my book sits on a shelf for a very limited time before it gets tossed onto the clearance rack (If I'm lucky) and cleared away for the next round of bodice ripping potboilers to come through. Ebooks don't have short self life of paper ones. I have a chance to sell as long as I'm motivated to sell it. I'm not at the publishing house's whim, at at my own.
4. The book I've written is not the only book I have in me. I have written 140,000+words and counting. I can do this pretty much until I drop dead. I'm hardly shooting my only bullet by doing this.
Don't forget, there was a self published ebook recently added to Amazon's million seller list. This guy is basically waving his ass at the traditional publishing world.
So I don't know if they'll decide you're untouchable if you self publish. It's exactly what I intend to do, and I could care less if they decide that about me. They've lost so much power over writers and the creative process, I don't consider their opinion all that relevant.
I also don't consider that getting a traditional contract to be any sort of validation of anyone's skill as a writer. What sealed my opinion of this and every other point I have made here is that one night I discovered a writer so terrible, so amateurish, so insultingly AWFUL that his novels read like fanfiction written by twelve years olds. I can't remember the dude's name (I'll ask the husband in the morning) but this writer is not only published on dead tree, not only is he popular, but he's got a big damn contract to produce more crap! He's written something like eight or more books! So you can't even let the idea that a publisher gives you the nod stroke your ego at this point.
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