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Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
Based on what I've heard, vanity press books aren't considered any better than e-books. Vanity press authors are still considered "outsiders," not ready for prime time, or just plain "not good enough" for publishing.
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Correct. An author published by a vanity press won't be taken seriously.
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Of course, if a vanity press run did phenomenally well in the market, any publisher would be willing to take it on (and share in the profits).
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Of course. But I've never heard of it happening. There's a good
reason most vanity press publications are produced by vanity presses...
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The same can be said about e-books ... witness "Aragon," originally an e-book and now a major motion picture, and "The Plutonium Blonde," which started online (on the Sci Fi Channel website, I believe) and went to traditional publishing after garnering huge popularity.
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The Sci-Fi Channel website
paid for the fiction they put up, and the woman who served as the editor, Ellen Datlow, has a very high reputation in the field.
Back in May, Sci-fi.com killed the effort and fired Ellen, deciding what they got out of it wasn't worth what they put into it. The site piously announced that after June 15th, it would no longer be available. The content is still there. A couple of friends of mine work on the site. I've wondered a bit if they decided to simply leave the content in place, figuring the guy who made the decision to kill it would never notice.
Electronic publication is still a thorny issue in some respects. There was a tempest in a teapot within SFWA (The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) a while back about whether stories published on web sites counted as professional credits in qualifying for SFWA membership. There are an assortment of sites that publish SF short fiction, and
pay contributors, so it should be a no-brainer, but we're talking about SFWA, who has often seemed confused about whether it is a trade organization or an exclusive little club.
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Dennis