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Originally Posted by Moejoe
There's very little extra effort really, in the digital world, to publish. It's as easy as signing up for a Feedbooks account and uploaded your work. Bingo-bango. Done!  |
Erm... if you really think Feedbooks would be willing to allow my Harry Potter or Star Trek fanfic, I'd be willing to go for that. I don't think they violate copyright--I'm pretty sure they fall well under "parody"--but I doubt Feedbooks would feel the same way.
Somehow, I suspect Feedbooks has publication standards that exclude most of what I currently write. (I suspect Feedbooks does *not* want to become a fanfic archive, and they should hope no fanfic authors of long novels decide their works are no more copyright violations than
The Wind Done Gone, and start placing them on ebook sites.)
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No, I'm saying the writing is the reward. The money is icing on a cake that is already delicious enough as is.
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The writing is the reward. You seem to be saying that seeking payment as well is irrelevant and pointless, and authors should not be concerned with it. That because the current mainstream publication model is flawed (it is), authors should forgo it entirely for the "simplicity" of digital publication, for which they only need to get online, research appropriate web hosts for their works, learn the web interface for each of those locations, understand half a dozen ebook formats, edit their own works for conversion to those formats, and decide whether and how to promote their works online.
There are plenty of authors who take to all that like breathing; there are plenty more, who don't--and you seem to be advising them to give up on what's working (poorly, in some cases) for them, for something entirely alien, with a pack of rewards that don't match the ones they're getting now.
They may be better rewards. But they are
different; and the online self-publication route doesn't offer the same opportunities that a traditional publishing contract does.
You seem to be telling new potential authors that they should ignore the potential rewards of traditional publishing for the potential rewards of digital self-managed publishing, as if they were easily measured against each other, with the digital benefits being obviously more.
I don't believe it's that simple.