Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Thornton
There was an article in the Grauniad the other day by Ray Connolly called "Who needs publishers?"
Today, there is this response. I didn't find it convincing; I think that they missed the biggest benefit of publishers - that of being properly edited and proofed.
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Ha. I haven't read a new book (either paper or e) for years that hasn't had lots of mistakes in it. I think in-house proof readers were the first to be made redundant when times got hard. That sort of thing is left to the writer to send out pre-release copies to fans, something they could easily do on their own.
They can open doors for you with paper books, but the only real advantage of publishers with ebooks is to take away some of the effort. There isn't anything you couldn't either do yourself or hire a freelancer to do. Certainly nothing that would make it worth giving away 90% of your income and being tied down for years.