In today's Guardian, novelist Sue Grafton (the American author of the A is for Alibi, B is for Burglar series of alphabet crime novels starring detective Kinsey Millhone) made dismissive comments regarding self-publishing and ignited a backlash. Calling them 'too lazy to do the hard work', she deemed it disrespectful and characterised the authors as 'wannabes'. Ouch.
British author Adam Croft, a self-published thriller author who has sold 250,000 copies of his books in the last year, took Grafton to task and described the work self-publishers must undertake well beyond that of traditionally published authors. "The complete opposite is true," he said. "Self-publishing means finding your own proofreader, finding your own editor, finding your own cover designer (or designing your own), doing all your own marketing and sales work, etc. Having a publisher is lazy as all you need to do is write a half-acceptable book and allow your publisher's editor to make it sales-worthy. Self-publishers must do it all – we have no one else to pick up the slack."
I won't recreate the entire slagging match here, so click to read it in its entirety, then share your thoughts.
British author Adam Croft, a self-published thriller author who has sold 250,000 copies of his books in the last year, took Grafton to task and described the work self-publishers must undertake well beyond that of traditionally published authors. "The complete opposite is true," he said. "Self-publishing means finding your own proofreader, finding your own editor, finding your own cover designer (or designing your own), doing all your own marketing and sales work, etc. Having a publisher is lazy as all you need to do is write a half-acceptable book and allow your publisher's editor to make it sales-worthy. Self-publishers must do it all – we have no one else to pick up the slack."
I won't recreate the entire slagging match here, so click to read it in its entirety, then share your thoughts.
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