Please expand on this. Write it again and again. You know they say in advertising it takes 5 times before it sinks in. Please expand on this point that independent filmmakers and musicians are accepted, but the perception is that self published authors are less than.

in film, we celebrate fimmakers who do it on their own, raising funds on their outside of the studio system to bring their visions to light. the old "he used to make great films before he sold out to the studios…" criticism (Robert Rodriguez with El Mariachi for example)

in music, right now we're seeing the amazing Cat Power go through bankruptcy because along with her health issues, she financed her current album entirely out of her own pocket because she wanted to maintain artistic integrity. and while we feel bad for what she's going through, we praise her for wanting to put out art untampered and ruined by a big label.

in publishing, it's the opposite. it's as if you're selling out by doing it on your own. it's as if the little penguin logo on the spine of your book is some sort of stamp of artistic integrity.

which seems very backwards.

YOU are the best………….I love this wrap up: Yet in literature, where we should be elevating the quality of content over everything else, we have somehow ended up so backwards in our thinking.

It’s about time we change that.

Tower Records, Virgin Mega Stores, Borders Books and Music – all gone, along with numerous daily newspapers. Yesterday's gone. The new delivery systems are cyber and Fedex. Let's get used to it.

That will change….Oscar Wilde stood on corners with his chapbooks hailing for readers.. Notice no more record stores when music changed and book stores will re-invent cos Writers will never stop writing……we are really in the toss up of 52 pick-up and will determine after cards land how to play them. I love Chiwan has all his publishing order in order….. with social media today, we become our own everything if we want and freedom from BIG CORP dependency. Enough "hits and veiws and tweets and FB posts" anyone can get attention, lets hope its for the BETTER writer like Chi than the scuzball trash of well no name s mentioned….

The catch 22 is that publishers like Random House and Penguin do, as is their commitment, publish the best, most promising fiction. We need lines drawn in the sand. Self-promotion is healthy but I have to say I can't stand wading through books that desperatly need editing and revision but that are out there anyway. Premature publication ought to be avoided and sadly, it's not. Not every manuscript written is meant for publication.

exactly, all gone. but we're still clinging to the Big Six (now Five) to legitimize us — i get it in a way from the consumer side because we always want some sort of filtration system, whether that system works or not. but in the writing world, it seems like even the artists are clinging on to this.

Beautifully put.

you haven't noticed all the typos in the ebooks put out by major publishers? you're right that a lot of self-published books are of low quality (need editing, revisions, etc) but this is true of books from Random House too. and really, the idea that the best most promising fiction come out of the majors is a myth.

hollywood studios will tell you they make the "best" films and give awards to them at the end of the year. so will the music industry tell you that the "best" music is from them and give awards to them.

but how true is it?

Exactly. It is not true at all. The reason the Academy expanded the Best Picture nominees from 5 to 10 is because independent films were getting all the nominations and studio films didn't stand a chance. As it is, indie movie consistently win more awards than studio films.

That's true. And as everything becomes digital/electronic, it becomes increasingly democratized.

Perfectly put. I'll go even further — when authors go the traditional route, they are giving it away: giving away their control over their work, and giving away a lot of money. The traditional publishing system is so costly that authors get scant royalties, and they still have to do their own marketing (no publishers don't do that for you any more).

I am coming out with a book in a few weeks for Independent Filmmakers. i decided to publish it though Cultural Weekly Press (it'll be our first book). Why? In addition to the reasons I cited above, a traditional publisher would not have been able to get it out for at least 9 months, and I wanted to get the information to indie filmmakers now.

I disagree. I undertsand the argument and yet distributing literature is quite different from distributing film. So too is their measure in originality, strength, newness, composition. Penguin has offices in London, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, and companies like Penguin Books (Random House, The Viking Press, etc.) keep each other apprised. If their worth was simply myth those who proclaim the need for self-publication would not be so loud.
More importantly, writers who publish out of hurt feelings over rejection – those who do not sit down to find and fix what is not working in their writing are doing themselves no grand favor. If, however, the writing is excellent, as is sometimes the case, going ahead on one's own is favorable. But it's a slippery slope. The more young writers hear that self-publication is the answer the less likely they may be to take those long looks at what's not working in their own work. That's dangerous.

I believe that getting published is not the same a being published. One is an extrinsic reward. The other is intrinsic. Published books are the dog-eared-dust-collectors and pants-pressers and those that are the vitamins of critics. Published articles, letters to the editors, poetry in the 50-year hgih school reunion program, and one's lyrics performed by the piano picker at the neighborhood dive are the mainlining juices that zonk a writer. And keep the writer writing and not giving up his day job.
D. Gilbert

Your dry humor has such a giant brain that when i chuckle at your wit and smartness i find hope for my little brain…i dont think I ever read Penguin books…unless they were about penguins…and i only like the bar codes in restaurants… I LOVE YOU. I THANK YOU.