I was fortunate to attend the VWC quarterly board of directors meeting hosted by the Hanover chapter on Saturday, May 15th. I carpooled with Jim Morrison, Becky Mushko and Dick Raymond, all of whom are members of both Valley Writers and Lake Writers. For over ten hours, we were stimulated by the meeting, the afternoon presentation by a variety of writers, all of whom chose self-publishing, and nearly 400 miles of car time. Thanks to Jim for driving.
What was interesting were the reasons various writers had for chosing self-publishing or publishing through Publish America. They included, among others:
Maintaining creative control
Weary of getting more agent rejections
"I'm not getting any younger" I really related to that last point!!!! So, lots of things to ponder until the next meeting in September.
With PublishAmerica, a large author mill that touts itself as a "traditional publisher" but offers no editing or distribution, the author doesn't have much creative control at all. PA tends to set prices for its book much higher than the industry standard and makes its money selling books to authors, not to readers.
ReplyDeleteSelf-publishing, on the other hand, is all about creative control.