Self-Publishing = Ralph Nader

I'm going to put it bluntly: I think self-publishing is a bad thing, at least in its current incarnation. There's a reason (or there used to be) that editors and publishers exist - to save the rest of us the trouble of finding out what's good and what's not. Things might have changed once the book industry became more about profit than quality, but the notion of publishing a good book, and not a book that will necessarily sell well, must remain with some publishers.

Yet self-publishing, by skipping the traditional selection and editing process of publishing, has the potentiality of over-saturating an already bloated marketplace with...well, crap. I'm not talking about people who make books for family or as business cards, but writers who want to get their stuff out there to the public. I don't share Epstein's optimism when it comes to the public's ability to separate the good from the bad - no sir, not when novels as poorly written as The DaVinci Code and The Fountainhead exist. Editors help maintain the literary standard, and in many cases, help make better writers. Rejection, I think, is a key part of honing one's skill. A writer needs someone to tell him what his weaknesses are, or at least point him in the right direction. Why can't this be friends or family? Because, unless they are professional editors, friends and family have neither the same discerning eye nor the same knowledge of current literary/publication trends that editors do. The DaVinci Code and The Fountainhead were published after having suffered the editorial process, yes, but The Fountainhead was rejected 12 times before publication and The DaVinci Code was...well I can't explain that one, other than mentioning that Brown had previously published 3 novels - none of which sold well.

I don't mean to generalize all self-published books as crap, but I think that there are many, many more bad writers out there than there are even modestly good ones. If self-publishing gains popularity and we start seeing more successes from unscreened writers, then there shall exist a dangerous message to bad writers: you can get published and be successful, too! For example: I used to write for the website Lit.org - which published essentially anything that you submitted. It was all divided into categories from fiction to nonfiction, and for a long time there was a small stream of really good writing. I noticed, though, that as the word spread about the website and submissions gained in volume, the quality declined. Being in 7th grade when I started writing there, I can say for sure that I played a part in that decline, but I can also say that I remember reading several pieces that stuck with me, even effected my writing. Now, Lit.org is a repository of poems written in all capital letters and short stories about angsty vampire high schoolers. I can only see Authonomy, and self-publishing, suffering the same fate. While self-publishing may filter out the true hacks due to the costs, someone who is truly dedicated to their crap writing will shell out whatever they can. Ed Wood's career is a great example of this in the film industry. It will only be a matter of time before the good self-published books are lost in a sea of "Spammer"-quality garbage.

That's not to say that self-publishing doesn't at least raise some critical issues about the nature of the publishing industry. Epstein makes it clear in his book that things have gone awry; the series of depressing articles we have all been privy to on this blog all but confirm that the industry is suffering for more reasons than just the recession. Things have to change, but self-publishing is not the answer. Look at it this way: self-publishing is like Ralph Nader (or Ross Perot, if you prefer. Or the Bull-Moose Party if you want to go really old school). Third party candidates have the right idea in providing an alternative to and pointing out the faults of our two-party system, but their platforms are often the source of a different kind of problem. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the publishing industry just needs its own Barack Obama.