View Single Post
Old 05-23-2010, 10:52 AM   #70
Steven Lyle Jordan
Grand Sorcerer
Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Steven Lyle Jordan's Avatar
 
Posts: 8,478
Karma: 5171130
Join Date: Jan 2006
Device: none
Quote:
Originally Posted by carbonize View Post
To get a book published requires that it be good enough to make the publisher believe it will sell, with free books there is no middleman between us and the writer.
The only problem with this is finding a publisher that will actually look at the book, and determine whether or not it will sell. Slush piles aren't shrinking, and pubs are still actually turning works away unseen because of their backlog. This is what happened to me when I first tried to get published... I was not turned down as unpublishable... I was told not to bother to submit!

So a lot of the works out there are by authors, like me, who are perfectly capable of writing a good book, but who weren't given a chance by the publishers, not even so much as a chance at consideration. So the authors, being coldly snubbed by the middlemen, acted on their own.

This effectively makes consumers the reviewers of the slushpile (the books that are published through Smashwords, etc), and it's up to you whether you want that role. Fortunately, there are sources of comments and reviews of much of that work, giving you a basis for deciding whether or not to read a book that is much more impartial than a book review paid for and written by agents of the publisher.
Steven Lyle Jordan is offline   Reply With Quote