Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
[...]This is, basically, the point I was trying to make earlier--there's a difference between being a writer and being a published author. One is doing one thing; the other another. That's all.
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Yep. But there might be something else too ...
We tend to look at the plethora of "published" work and become appalled at how such drivel made it to "publication" (the quotes have a reason that I hope will become clear, please don't think I'm waving my fingers in air and being overly emphatic
). But there are many things going on here in this big wide Internet world.
There is the thing that has always been with us, that most books look like drivel to someone, no matter how well written, edited and presented. Let's ignore that one.
There was a time when sharing a story you'd written meant printing (and before that typing or writing) it out and handing it around friends and family. That doesn't happen anymore. You might think people would just email one another, but lots of people have trouble with email attachments: "I can't open it, I don't have the right version of Word", or "I can't load it on my Kindle" ... or whatever. It's now sometimes easier to "publish" your work, just to be able to share it with a few friends - and perhaps the vain wish/thought that some strangers might find it and like it too.
And that's why I put quotes around "publish". I don't know this for a fact, but I suspect that Amazon and Smashwords are sometimes being used as just another social network site, a way that people share their work with their friends. So sometimes they are not trying to publish as such, they are just sharing. And as Clay Shirky said in his book
Here Comes Everybody, (paraphrasing here, but it's close enough) "they aren't talking to you."
Of course there are those overly confident ones that Dr Drib spoke of, that think the masterpiece they just finished writing out last night is ready for the big time, but it's now so easy to use these publishing sites that I suspect my interpretation may have some merit (and at least paints a kinder picture of what we see appearing). I have no idea how this all pans out statistically.