Quote:
Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
The problem with using "volcano of crap" to describe self-published books is that it is really hard to avoid the bad stuff that spews from a volcano, while it is quite easy to avoid the bad stuff that comes from self-published books. If Mount Vesuvius spewed forth some diamonds in addition to all that ash, it would be a monumental task to find those diamonds. If I had to randomly search through self-published to find the good ones, it would indeed be analogous to a volcano.
But I don't search for books randomly. The same techniques that I use to select traditionally published books work for selecting self-published books work: word of mouth, reviews, etc. If you never notice the ash and lava, is there really a volcano?
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The issue that comes from the "volcano of crap" metaphor is not that you can't find more than enough good books to read, but the number of good books that you never find. Those are the ones that are masked.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I think this is one of the most positive things to come from the reports. They make it clear that readers are at least as good at gate-keeping as the big publishing houses. Sure, some things will still be missed, and sure, there will still be many things that sell in big numbers that some of us just don't understand, but it's not like it was any different when big publishing held the keys to the only door in town.
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Unfortunately, the numbers don't show that readers are at least as good as gatekeepers as the agency/BPH model. They may be better, they may be worse, but you can't tell from the numbers we've got.
If we assume that the overall level of writer skill remains constant, then we can postulate that the average quality of manuscripts submitted to publishers and agents is the same as that of those which are self-published, so they get the same proportion of good/average/bad manuscripts in the door.
Then we just see what proportion of total BPH submissions makes the top 7,000 list and compare that to the proportion all self-published books that make the same list.
If the BPH's get a higher proportion of their submissions into the top 7,000 list, then they're doing a better job. If the proportion of all self-published books that gets into the top 7,000 is higher, then they're doing a better job.
It's a rough figure, and I can see tons of problems with it, but it at least addresses the question of which is a better method of gatekeeping.