Quote:
Originally Posted by VydorScope
So this is a funny thread considering how many threads there are here about how evil the "gate keepers" where before the break out of independents and ebooks blew the gates off the hinges.
All you are doing is suggesting recreating the very thing the market is currently rebelling against...
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In the "legacy" gatekeeper system, if your work didn't meet the approval of the gatekeepers, it didn't get published. No way to find out if an excellent story with lousy grammar could find an audience. No way to find out if truly *whacked* bending of the language had an audience, unless you were one of the one or two per decade like Joyce or Burroughs or Keroac who were considered "artistic" rather than just "incompetent" for their literary style choices.
An approval stamp granted or withheld *after* publication is not at all the same. While some customers would indeed refuse to buy anything not approved (and, heh, how many of the Big Six would deign to submit their works for consideration?), plenty of other people would choose to decide for themselves, based on recommendations from friends or just random reading of the blurbs and seeing the covers.
There's a difference between "gatekeeper" and "tour guide." People who don't like guided tours can find their own way; gatekeepers mean that *nobody* gets access to anything not approved.