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Originally Posted by ApK
Perhaps it was the idea that we don't self-publish as first choice.
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Even J.A. Konrath went into self-publishing when he was dropped by his publisher.
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It's a new era. eBooks and the Internet are changing things, and there are a heck of a lot of good reasons to self-publish an eBook as first choice now.
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And it's also a great option if you can't get a publishing deal.
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Perhaps it's a little different for self-publishing print books via a vanity press or the like, and certainly there will be a lot of chaff among the wheat, but I'd say self-publishing an ebook rather than doing the possibly-years-long agent/publisher contract route is akin to a film maker going out and actually making his movie and showing it, rather than trying to get a deal with a studio first.
The audience will propel you to success or bury you in obscurity on the basis of your work, not on the whim of a publishing house gatekeeper.
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Let's be honest. The gatekeeping function that publishers provide is a very valuable service. Pretending that it's just a "whim" - that self-published books, as a whole, are as good as published books, as a whole, makes me wonder whether you've ever really looked at the self published crap out there. If you exclude already published authors (including authors making their formerly published backlists available) 90, maybe 95% of self published books are just bad. Embarrassingly bad unedited fan fiction, or else extremely derivative and poorly written genre novels.
This is the dreck that many people don't want to wade through to get to the few self-published books that might be as good as published material. The thing about books is that you have to read them. I, like a lot of people who buy books, am much less concerned about the cost of the book than I am about wasting my valuable free time reading something that is bad. Or mediocre. Or even not good.
If I'm lucky, I get to read one book a week; usually it's less than that. I don't want to risk my valuable reading time on something that was either not good enough to be published, or else that someone didn't bother to try and publish. There are 270,000 books published by traditional publishers in the US every year. 270,000. And it can be hard enough finding enough of those books that are genuinely good. (I read a lot of classics, which are a safer bet, though). I don't see any point in significantly decreasing my odds of finding a worthwhile book by digging in the slush pile to find something readable.