A Good Book is a Good Book is a Good Freaking Book!

As anyone who knows anything about the publishing industry in this digital age knows (don't hold your breath for it to end if you hate it - it will never end!) , having an internet presence is very important to today's authors. One of the things an author can do to maintain/strengthen their internet presence is partcipate in literary/author dicussion forums ( such as those found at http://www.kindleboards.com/). A few days ago, I was practicing what I preached in the previous sentence when I read a post that caused me to be "Fired up and ready to go" (candidate Barack Obama -2008). A participant who shall remain unidentified asked if any of their fellow self-published owners felt self-conscious about identifying themselves as self-published authors (try saying that three times fast).

My response to that question was swift and appropriate. I told the participant who shall remain unnamed that there is no need for self-published authors to identify themselves as self-published authors because a good author is a good author is a good freaking author! Likewise, a good book is a good book is a good freaking book! PWSRU seemed to suffer from the steaming toro dung assertion that legacy publishers (I learned the term legacy from reading J.A. Konrath's outstanding blog- http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/) have been trying to force feed readers and authors since the advent of print on demand technology. That assertion is that self-published work is inherently inferior to traditionally published work. As I expressed to PWSRU on the forum- I laugh at such blatant falsehood! Sure, reading self-published work can be a crapshoot, but no more of a crapshoot than reading traditionally published work. I mean, come on - there are a whole buttload of traditionally published books out there that have been "written" by reality t.v. stars. Some of the aforementioned group hardly seem literate- yet they're writing books?

The most significant difference between a self-published author and a traditionally published author is the method in which their books are produced, advertised, and distributed. Concerning qualtiy, there is nothing to stop serious self-published authors from having thier books professionally designed and edited. Therefore, to identify onesself as a self-published author is a useless and senseless action. Authors need only to identify themselves as authors. Whether or not there are any good is a matter of individual reader opinion. By the way, Charles Dickens self-published A Christmas Carol. Those of you who think self-published work is inherently inferior should let that marinate in your mind.