self-publishing Archives | A.S. Akkalon

A very serious blog post on traditional publishing

Kristine Kathryn Rusch argues knowledgeably and convincingly that authors should self-publish. I still don’t plan to. Here’s why.

I promised you a very serious blog post, and here it is.

I’m a long-time fan of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s (though for some reason I can never remember her name).

She’s a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, but I admit I’ve never tried her fiction.

I’m a fan of her blog.

She writes about the publishing industry, but not regurgitated primers on how to get published or the latest gossip. She writes well-researched, detailed posts about the nitty gritty things you need to know if you want to make a living as a writer, such as licensing rights, contract clauses, and why you should avoid agents and traditional publishers like the coronavirus.

Why I’ve decided to pursue trade publication

I’ve decided to pursue trade (traditional) publication. Here I try to explain the madness that led to this decision.

If you know me, you’ll know you I’m a firm supporter of all writers, whether they write for themselves or an audience, whether they’re self-published or big five-published (except for total jerks–I’m slightly less supportive of them).

I started researching how to publish in 2006 when self-publishing was still very much fringe. (Not by coincidence, this was the year I first completed a first draft. It was 200k words long.)

At the time I was a long way from being ready to publish and I knew it, but I always intended to pursue trade publication.

When I came back to writing seriously a few years ago, the publishing landscape was unrecognisable. I redid my research, and concluded that self-publishing was now a real option, but I still wasn’t sure if it was the right option for me.

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Is reading poorly edited fiction bad for your health?

Reading poor writing desensitises you to it, and if you’re not careful soon we’ll all be drowning in custard.

This might be a short post because I’m trying to review five books and a camel today. Okay, it’s not that bad, but I have a few things I need to do before I can sit down and edit my work in progress.

If you pay any attention to the self-publishing world, you’ll have heard the frequent cries of outrage about how badly edited some self-published fiction is. I’m not going to argue that point. I’m going to assert some self-published fiction is terribly edited and some is not, and if you don’t agree with me you can go play on the see-saw on your own because I’m not going to play with you.

Glad we got that out of the way.

Now that we’ve established some self-published fiction is poorly edited, here’s my claim:

Reading it is bad for your health.

Continue reading “Is reading poorly edited fiction bad for your health?”