[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Yes, there are more and more indie successes as time goes on, and it's inevitable that there will be more.

Indie books are not intrinsically inferior to commercially published books, nor are they intrinsically superior. However, they are much more variable in quality.

The very ease of indie publishing means that there are a lot of really bad indie books out there, just as there are a lot of really good indie books out there. The big issue for many people is that it can be hard to find the good ones without being swamped in the sheer volume of books published every day.

Commercially published books have a higher "floor" when it comes to quality. The really badly written ones don't make it to publication, and most grammatical errors get caught before publication. In the indie world, both these kinds of books can, and sometimes do, get published as is.

Good indie books are just as good as the best commercially published books. There's no question.

Indie publishing is just as viable a route to success as commercial publishing, but it entails more work for the author, and a smaller proportion of indie books reach the minimum level of success that can be expected from a commercially published book.

Indie publishing has democratized the industry. Anyone and everyone can get published. This is a good thing, because it opens publishing to whole of society, so that great books that would otherwise be overlooked by the industry can be published. However, the flip side is also true, really bad books that have no redeeming values can also be published in exactly the same way.

The truth is there is no one solution for all authors. Some will thrive as indies, others need the assistance commercial publishing provides. There are advantages and disadvantages to both forms of publication, and none of us can say which is best for every other person.

Why is it that discussions of indie publishing so often center on what is best for the author--what gives the author more control, what makes the author more money, etc. I don't give a damn what's better or worse for the author--I'm a READER, and what's better for me is a book that meets minimum standards of competency. Traditional publishing is no guarantee of that, but it's a lot less of a crapshoot than all the self-published drek that's out there.