Quote:
Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
What digital distribution has done is given us a lot more choices. If what the record labels aren't to your taste, you can bypass them. If the record labels won't sign you, you can bypass them.
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Plenty of musicians actually *own* their own labels, do their own recordings, and merely use the studios as distributors. In the world of digital, they don't need even that. They control their art, they choose how to proceed.
The same will happen with books.
Sure, there will always be publishers...but a fair amount of them will be the author. And just because it is published by the author doesn't mean the author has to do everything personally: merely that the author *controls* everything. Self publishers get to choose the editor, the artist, the proofer, and they pay for it upfront instead of surrender the majority of future profits for a loan.
Authors may or not choose to partner with a publishing house if *they* see value in the partnership and *if* they feel they can trust them. But if they do so it will be by choice, not because they have to.
Pretending that self-publishing automatically implies "amateur hour" *every* time is disingenuous or self-deceptive. Or an attempt to stampede the naive into seeking validation at the cost of surrendering lifetime control of their prosuct.
Authors are no longer *forced* to play the game by traditional publishing rules. Those days are over. Relying on traditional publishers is an *option* that may make sense for some and not others but it is by no means a law of nature.