marthawells

I'm very sorry about your cousin.

Self-Published books bring up a whole set of problems in Library Land since we try to include in the collection local authors. That encompasses self-published books that are given to us - sometimes. Some of them are so awful that we hate to include them and it may take a very long time indeed for them to ever make it onto the shelf, if they ever do. That's because the higher ups frown on telling local authors who vote (and often have many friends and family that vote) that their work is not up to our standards.

We can't say we won't accept self-published books because we want the genealogy, local history, and local interest that comes that way. Only in extremely rare cases, however, will we ever buy a fiction self-published book and I think authors should know that. (The only time we have is when a local celebrity has published one and is going to speak at the library for free. We will then buy at least one copy.)

Thanks.

Yes, self-publishing is a perfect option for non-fiction and other things that are going to have a small or local audience, or reprints of out-of-print fiction by already established writers. It's the first-time authors who really get cheated, when these places charge thousands of dollars to print the book, and lie about getting it distributed to bookstores and libraries.

As much as we bemoan many of the policies of legitimate publishers, they do provide a very valuable service in that they vett the material for you. You go to any vanity press website and look through their catalog, and the crap ratio is extremely high. I've noticed this problem developing on the Kindle store at Amazon. There seems to be a lot of non-hardcopy stuff being put on there, and it mostly seems to be self-published crap.

I do think that ebook publishers should have a policy of not accepting material that hasn't already been in hardcopy by a legitimate press, unless it's a very specialized non-fiction work such as local histories and stuff like that.

I'm sorry for your loss, and inspired by your cousin's life.

Thank you :)

I'm sorry to hear about your cousin, but it's good to hear he stuck it to the experts. :->

Thanks, and yeah, he really did prove them all wrong.

I'm sorry to hear about your cousin. He sounds like a really neat person. *hug*

Thanks, he really was.

I'm sorry about your cousin.

Thanks :)

It's always quite wonderful when someone can thumb their nose at predictions of doom and despair. There is little point in not living simply because you're going to die. If there was, none of us could prosper.

It really is. And I'm glad he was proof to other people that you can still have a good life despite hemophilia.

Your cousin sounds like a man who will be missed. My condolences to you and your family.

Thank you :)