Worldwalker: Even without NaNoWriMo there are tons of gullible people out there. However, if there's one thing I've learned in the brief time I've been in the publishing industry is this. Most authors who go to vanity publishers (not *all*, as there are a surprising number of really good authors who chose the vanity/pod/PTP route not because they don't feel their stuff is good enough for prime time. The majority do it for...well, vanity reasons. I talked with a bunch of other writers at some of the local book shows I've gone to, and it's shocking how bad their books are, but yet they strut themselves around like kings. And god forbid you dare say one bad thing about their book. Their "precious", as Golum liked to say.
So I think the better way to look at the publishing world, or even "vanity" publishers is this. 90% (or to some degree even more than that) of all books published by them are by authors who have no right carrying that title, because they're not writing because they love it. They're writing and publishing in order to feed their own egos, and give food to their own self importance. Seriously. Cause I don't feel that all authors who go to vanity publishers are bad authors, nor are their books. Yes, it's a small percentage, but they are out there. Even in a worst case scenario where 99% of all authors who publish via a vanity publisher are ego basket cases, there's still that 1% who are really, really good.
I've seen some books come through the likes of Booksurge that are so good if you didn't know any better, you'd think that they were done by one of the big houses. The same rule applies with self published authors. Some want to do it themselves and don't want to be bothered with the hassle of the submission process, rejections, etc. So they instead do all the footwork, get the ISBN themselves, get it printed themselves (or professionally through a printing house), do the marketing, etc.
So saying that all authors who go the vanity/POD/PTP/SP route are bad is wrong. As I said, I've seen some in that category with books that would knock your socks off, but chose the route they did for personal reasons. It's like me. I prefer small publishing houses because they treat you like a human (well there's other reasons, but that's the biggest one with me.) and you get better returns on your books. And yet, there are people who would bash me and call me a substandard author simply because I'm not big house published.
Now, do I think that there needs to be a better way to find the truly good indie authors? Yes, I do. Goodreads is a good start, but could use some work. Now Simon Royle, a member here at MobileRead, has a system he's starting that I believe would be a good start in the right direction towards solving that issue. Namely, if you're indie published, regardless of the flavor, and you don't have at least a 4.0 or higher cumulative score (I might settle for something as low as 3.5 if I thought it might be worth reading) from 5 independent reviews, then you aren't worth reading.
Expanding on his idea a bit further, if it takes off and a nationwide (or worldwide) network of independent reviewers gets established, having those, plus the professional reviewers out there, would go a long way towards filtering out all the bad stuff and letting the good stuff settle to the top. Oddly, it might even have the nice secondary effect of discouraging the influx of bad indie authors that's happening right now. Wait, no, scratch that. It'll stop the *good* authors with writing that's not up to par, forcing them to get better before releasing their works. It'll never stop the bad ones, because they are so ego driven that they have no idea they're actually really, really bad.
hehe.
Anywho, that's my 2c. Spend as you like.
