New Media

"Most good (neat, innovative, wild, woolly) ‘stuff,’ large and small, happens in the boondocks, far, far from corporate headquarters, corporate politics, and corporate toadying." Tom Peters

Last week I went to the monthly luncheon of the Colorado Authors’ League to hear local author, Justin Matott speak about how he took his first book from self-published to a major publisher. I’ve heard so many stories about big publishers picking up self-published books that I believe that this is the new process for getting published. Not everyone agrees.

At the same luncheon, I sat next to an older woman who has published several books the traditional way and clearly turns her nose up at the very idea of self-publishing. She writes a local column reviewing fiction and, I learned later, had refused to review my friend Irv’s wonderful mystery novel, No Laughing Matter, when she learned he had self-published it. She had been very interested in the same book when she thought it was published the traditional way.

Some people just can’t seem to accept that change happens, even in the stodgiest of industries. While it’s true that many self-published books are iffy or downright BAD in both content and presentation, it is also true that some really wonderful books have been published by the author first, including the original writings of William Blake, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, William Morris, and James Joyce. Here’s a short list of other books you may be familiar with that started as self-published books:

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer

What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Nelson Bolles

In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans

If you only do things the way they’ve always been done, you’ll never get a new result.

©2007 Dixie Darr. All rights reserved