Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
New York Review Book ClassicsI must disagree. The worst trad-pubbed books are far better than the worst indies, because the worst indies seem to me to be the product of functional illiterates. The worst are poorly conceived, written, spelled, produced, and so forth. At least the worst trad-pubbed books have the sheen of having been processed by more than one pair of eyes* (belonging to someone who thinks s/he's the next great discovery). I'm not arguing that there isn't trad-pubbed carp out there; I don't read much mainstream fiction anyway, so my bar is pretty high in that respect. Unreadable (for me) is unreadable, publishing method be damned. But at least the trad-pubbed carp doesn't offend me on the basic grounds of literacy.
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That's fine. My point is that I don't distinguish between literate and illiterate crap. The end result is still books I don't want to read--a list to which there is no end (regardless of pedigree). In other words... when I buy and read (or attempt to read) a book that I didn't enjoy at all, I have never once been comforted by the fact that it had a traditionally published "sheen."
I'm not trying to encourage people to read more independently published works/authors. I don't read that many myself. I'm just trying to point out that pointing out the size of a crap-pile that no one ever need wade blindly into (a crap-pile that was of considerable size
before the explosion of e-indie-publishing, mind you) serves very little purpose.
"I like/don't like
this book" is--and always will be--a better critiquing method. "
These books are mostly crap" is no different than any other sour-grapes comments from people who feel their* tastes are more important than others'. I say; if a publishing method produces ANY quality works, then the size of the pile of crap that work had to climb to get noticed is irrelevant.
The only thing indie-publishing has done is put a few great books in front of my eyes that I wouldn't have had the chance to read had it been left up to traditional gatekeepers to decide. The size of the crap-pile those books crawled out of (a crap-pile one never has to go wading into) is completely irrelevant to that fact.
*
That's a very rhetorical and non-specific "their" right there.