Stefan said: I don't think Brooklyn would be suitable for a citrus tree,
Depends heavily on the microclimate of the garden site. You'd be amazed what you can grow, say, next to a south-facing stone wall with wind protection.
Oh, blarg. Why is it that if I miss one typo, it has to be in the *name*? Sorry, Mary Anne.
Attempting to explore the possibilities here:
Mary Ann, I don't know how long you've been following this thread, so forgive me if I'm telling you something you already know -- but are you aware that the advice on TJP's site that people are so angry about is not what's currently there (the bit about creating your own small lit journal), but what was there before he make an (unacknowledged) revision (which flatly and baldly advocated making up publication credits and awards)? Because I could see why you'd wonder what was so awful about the current advice; it's not great, but nothing to spark this level of outrage, either. What was formerly there, though, was...different.
Without self-publishing / vanity presses, there would no doubt be parents grieving over their dead children in a high school somewhere.
Tim, I wonder how many more people you could have reached with the resources of a conventional publisher behind you, promoting your information in venues you didn't even know about and so never knew to promote yourself in? Conventional publishers have entire departments for promotion -- getting the word out about your book. They're good at it; it's what those people do for a living.
Kudos for taking action on an issue that meant something to you. Now what you need to be doing is evaluating your course of action and seeing if you can do better.
Lisa, my guess is that the majority of people who "just want to be read" actually mean "I want to have a physical book, because that's what everybody agrees makes you a Published Author." Never mind that going to a vanity press so you can say you are published is like getting a certificate by mail that says you are a minister. It may *technically* be true, but...
Regarding Daniel Lewis's Madame Bovary question: Daniel, one of the marks of a brilliant idea is that it seems so obvious once it's pointed out. You "almost" had the same idea, independently -- but you didn't have it. Nor have you found that others have had the idea independently, nor that the idea is now widely known. The circumstances therefore call for a citation.
Here's something that doesn't often get considered by those people who think they'll publish with a vanity press, promote the book themselves, and use that success to broker a deal with a traditional publisher:
A friend of mine decided (against my recommendations) to publish her nonfiction book with iUniverse. After wearing herself out for a year promoting her book (and not being able to write the second because of the promotional work she was doing on the first), she *actually did* sell enough copies to be able to go to New Leaf Distributing and get them interested in carrying the book. Then the deal fell through because iUniverse doesn't discount books to distributers. This makes iUniverse and the author herself the only sources for the book.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 8 |
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