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9 Signs Self-Publishing Is out of Control

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Renegade:
Simple - the 'self-publishing' repository websites could work on the principle that unless more than 50 or 100 copies is sold per month it gets pulled. They could give new publications 6 months to achieve that level of sales. It won't make much difference for people who genuinely want to self publish via their own website but will prune the pointless dross that no one wants to read.

Its effectively what happens on a larger scale with real publishing - once sales drop the printing stops.
-Carol Haynes (May 15, 2012, 02:57 PM)
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That would kill scientific publications as many are only read by a handful of people, but form the foundation of later work.

I'm sure you didn't mean that though. But setting levels wouldn't really benefit anyone, except perhaps the distributor.

Some books are very difficult to publish, even through self-publishing, and really need someone with a bit of muscle to throw their support behind. Some people have been thrown in prison for self-publishing their work. e.g. Fritz Springmeier (I've seen an old printing of his book selling on Amazon for hundreds of dollars - they're now down to less than $200 because it's back in print through Infowars).


The trouble, as I see it, is not that real publishers are dying in the new world because of self publishing but that the mega-corps are effectively ousting them - eventually Amazon, Apple, et al will become the new world publishers with even less help and support for authors as they establish a leech-like grip on authors.
-Carol Haynes (May 15, 2012, 02:57 PM)
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Amazon and Apple are not really good for publishing overall. Apple is a well-known, belligerent censor, and Amazon is well-known for being ruthless. I have faith in that smaller publishers and self-publishing will continue for a long time to offer alternative perspectives. The philosophical perspective of many small publishers will prevent Amazon or Apple from swallowing them up, because neither Big A can stomach what a lot of people think.

But, I think you're right for a large sector of publishing. The Big A's will eat up most. Yay. Aren't we lucky...  :-\

TaoPhoenix:

I feel that the original article is nearly pure troll. It purposely mashes up half truths to try to confuse us into going back to the old ways - which benefit the big conglomerates.

I agree the whole point of digital files is that there is essentially no such thing as stock limits (beyond data corruption blunders.) So combining another meme, we shouldn't ever care if a copy EVER gets sold! Want to know why? It's that other modern concept, the Long Tail. There might be only seven people in the world who want to read a book on something like, oh, Mathematical I Ching prayers. That doesn't mean we should punish the book for the fact that none of the seven target audience members have found it yet.

So yes, you need a *good* review system, with a couple of different metrics. But don't go back to threatening to pull books if they "don't meet the bar". Just sort the selection by rating, and that obscure I Ching book will sit there happily at No Reviews Yet.

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