Quote:
Originally Posted by gastan
Has anyone else come to loathe the very idea of self-published books? I began reading them for two reasons. #1: price. They are a great bargain, money-wise.
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Ah, the fallacy of thinking that something that has little or no monetary cost is cheap or free. Books in general are pretty cheap for the value they provide; my free time, however, is limited. Far too limited for my book choices to be determined by price.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
My main problem with judging a book by it's publisher is, that the only thing being tradpubbed tells me is that it received a baseline competent proofreading to fix grammar and spelling gaffes.
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It also tells you, at a minimum, that a corporation thinks they can make money producing it. That might not indicate quality, but at least it indicates a level of popularity or liking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
This leaves a pool of books of roughly equal quality.
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Whoa! Not so fast. I think you jumped over a chasm to come to this conclusion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Tradpubs select books they *think* will sell.
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Yup. Which implies that a significant number of people will like it, or expect to like it to the extent they're willing to plunk down money for it. Most indies can't meet that qualification; they're just an exercise in vanity and ignorance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
Some garbage is published just to make money so you can take risks and find and publish really good books. Garbage is not the problem. The just so and so books are the problem.
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I agree with this. This is what always disappoints me when I think back over my reading; I wish I had chosen better books. Just yesterday I abandoned a highly-praised book as just so much middle-brow junk. And not that there's anything wrong with that. My taste isn't perfect and I have my own fluffy favorites.