[DiapDealer]

90% of everything published has always been garbage, so readers have always had to deal with a "slush pile" of sorts. And when it comes to the "basic competence guarantee" that everyone likes to trot out when extolling the benefits of sticking to only traditionally published books/authors ... say it with me ... "no one has ever taken comfort in the fact that a book they purchased and didn't like was at least competently written." That dog won't hunt. "It was dry, boring, overly-long and utterly without inspiration. But gosh-darn it if most of the words weren't spelled correctly! I give it 3 out of 5 stars for sheer competence"--said no one ever.

Besides, navigating the self-published "slush pile" is no different than navigating the enormous pile of traditionally published books (of which there's only a tiny fraction you're truly going to enjoy): people talk about the good ones.

I don't read that many self-published books, myself. But I read a few here and there. I'm utterly open to liking them. I can't remember the last one I read that I'd call dreck. I can certainly remember the last traditionally-published book I bought and read on a whim and thought was garbage, though. *shrug*