Electron Mills?

[Ransom]

A good article called: The Disturbing Trend In E-Publishing

I know of at least one or two e-publishers exactly like this.

[neilmarr]

There were print author mills around earlier, like the notorious PublishAmerica. Now with ebooks, a wave of new e-mills can churn out the stuff automatically, with no selection or editorial process involved, at a much higher rate, adding vastly to a gigantic slush pile the reader himself must sift for the nuggets of gold buried there. Neil

[Ransom]

It's a shame in several ways. I know someone who got very excited recently after having a story excepted by an e-publisher only to find out later that they accept just about anything. I can see where that would kind of take the wind out of your sails.

[neilmarr]

It's a big problem for readers, for genuinely worthy authors and for indie publishers. Finding excellence is like hunting for a needle in an ever-growing haystack. Neil

[crich70]

I think it's an old problem in a new wrapper. As long as there have been publishers there have been those who would publish anything for the right price (vanity and/or subsudy publishing and so forth). It's just become easier to do it than in the past due to the new medium is all. You can wash garbage all you want but all you will have is clean garbage and if a publisher will print anything no matter what the quality it does become harder for everyone else to find the gem among the garbage.

[mr ploppy]

Speaking as one of the people clogging the internet up with unpublishable crap, I don't understand why anyone would want to use a company like that? Think it, write it, publish it. Why add anyone else into the equation? If you want the "prestige" of having someone else publish it, get a family member to set up a "publishing company", nobody will know the difference. If you're really too clueless to upload it to Smashwords or wherever yourself, find someone who will do it for a small one-off fee.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Speaking as one of the people clogging the internet up with unpublishable crap, I don't understand why anyone would want to use a company like that? Think it, write it, publish it. Why add anyone else into the equation? If you want the "prestige" of having someone else publish it, get a family member to set up a "publishing company", nobody will know the difference. If you're really too clueless to upload it to Smashwords or wherever yourself, find someone who will do it for a small one-off fee.

That's what I was thinking. I think these electronic mills are much less of a problem (for quality control purposes) than the fact that anyone can upload a file and publish themselves. Don't get me wrong: I've self-published on Amazon and I'm not going to say it's all crap, but if you're concerned about the gatekeepers not keeping the gates, self-publishing e-books is a bigger danger.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Speaking as one of the people clogging the internet up with unpublishable crap, I don't understand why anyone would want to use a company like that? Think it, write it, publish it. Why add anyone else into the equation? If you want the "prestige" of having someone else publish it, get a family member to set up a "publishing company", nobody will know the difference. If you're really too clueless to upload it to Smashwords or wherever yourself, find someone who will do it for a small one-off fee.

I think part of the problem is that those who fall for such publishers are generally those who don't know any better. The novice who hasn't done much reading about publishing books and so forth. They fall for the sweet sounding spiel that said 'publisher' whispers in their ears. Of course not all books are well written and I imagine some bad ones do occasionally slip through even good publishers but I'd guess it's the novices who make the mistake of trying with a bad publisher more often than an experienced writer who knows something about the markets.

[Ransom]

I know a guy who self-published a couple of how-to books on using Windows Movie Maker and just sold them through Amazon and his website. He figured that there were only a small handful of sales in a book like that anyway, so no traditional publisher would probably want it, and even if they took it on, the book would sell in such low numbers that his end of the profits would be next to nothing. For him, self-publishing was probably a good idea. I can think of a number of situations like that, especially with how-to books of limited interest.

The same would likely be true of a lot of scholarly titles too. For instance, Oxford Press regularly comes out with books that sell less than five hundred copies total. I had one from them that was basically just a bibliography of the works of a 19th century Scottish author who was quite good, but not well-known. I think only 200 of those books were ever printed. The author probably didn't make $25 on the deal. Self-publishing has its place.

[Ransom]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

It's a big problem for readers, for genuinely worthy authors and for indie publishers. Finding excellence is like hunting for a needle in an ever-growing haystack. Neil

Ain't it the truth! Movies are just as bad. My sister gave me a $25 Blockbuster gift card for my birthday three years ago, and I still have half the money left on it. And I've only been to the movie theater twice in that time too. There's just nothing to see.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Ransom

Ain't it the truth! Movies are just as bad. My sister gave me a $25 Blockbuster gift card for my birthday three years ago, and I still have half the money left on it. And I've only been to the movie theater twice in that time too. There's just nothing to see.

But theaters stay open and the studios haven't closed up shop so certainly someone is going to see what is being produced. I don't go often either but it's a mixture of not finding something I find interesting (the blurb) showing and of course the rising cost of getting in the door. Where I live it used to be $4.50 for the weekend matinee, then it went up to $5.00 and now last I checked it was up to $5.50 which isn't that much less than the cost on weekdays. Course part of that is probably the economy which might explain some ebook prices as well to a degree. It might also in part at least explain why people turn to publishers who publish just about anything too. If the big boy publishers publish less and sometimes only those that they feel can really bring in the $$ then the unknown author who is trying to break into the business might go with the other publisher who seems to publish anything.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Ransom

Ain't it the truth! Movies are just as bad. My sister gave me a $25 Blockbuster gift card for my birthday three years ago, and I still have half the money left on it.

For the second time this week, I point someone towards this thread:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62460

[Ransom]

For the second time this week, I point someone towards this thread:

Can't say I saw more than one film there that interested me. Guess I'm hard to please.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Ransom

Ain't it the truth! Movies are just as bad. My sister gave me a $25 Blockbuster gift card for my birthday three years ago, and I still have half the money left on it. And I've only been to the movie theater twice in that time too. There's just nothing to see.

The main reason I stopped going to cinemas was all the noise from other people in the audience. When I was young they were like libraries, and if you said anything or laughed too loud some woman would shine a torch at you and tell you to shut up.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Ransom

Can't say I saw more than one film there that interested me. Guess I'm hard to please.

Movies are as important an artform and means of expression as are books, even if expressed in a different way. Someone saying that there aren't movies that interest him is as mind-boggling to me as someone saying that there are no books that interest him.