One of the publishing blogs I read with regularity belongs to Nathan Bransford. He was until fairly recently a literary agent for Curtis Brown in San Franscisco but now considers himself a publishing civilian who works in the tech industry. Despite this, he is still widely read among publishing insiders and wannabes alike. The reason for his continued popularity is his knowledge of publishing, his ability to frame issues with center-of-bullseye accuracy, and his ability to communicate them in a very enlightening, understandable, and entertaining way.
On Wednesdays, he often throws an issue to his readers and invites them to tell him what they think about it. He did that this week on the topic: "Who Should Have the ‘Indie’ Label: Self-Publishers or Small Presses?" The link below will take you to his blog post and the numerous comments his readers provided. After the link, you will find the comment I deposited on his page.
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/04/who-deserves-indie-label.html
I'm self-published. It's an e-book in the Kindle Store. I paid nothing to get there. Consequently, it seems there is a flaw in the "paid for=vanity=self-published," equation.
Since Amazon has provided a place where I can sell my story for free and make as much or more in royalties per sale than the vast majority of traditional authors make per book through publishers of either the indie or the big six ilk, color me hesitant to call them my corporate overlord. No, the corporate overlords are folks with whom I have no contact as a consequence of at least two degrees of gatekeepers, none of whom are named Kevin Bacon. I tried. They let me see through the keyhole, but in the end it made more sense for me to drive right through that double garage door at Amazon.
The traditional worlds of authoring and publishing are trying to enforce rules and terminology that make their universe feel like home. I don’t think they should hold their breath until they get their way. Popular culture will have its own way, industry pillars be damned.
Once upon a time large numbers of people got lumped together because they had happiness in common. Those happy people had to learn to share the word “gay” with people who are attracted to other people of the same gender but may or may not be happy. Sometimes that works. Sometimes the female people who are attracted to other females like to instead use the “L word.” This all sounds like the same old stuff that has made political correctness so tedious at every turn.
To use a famous quote from a guy to whom people rarely look for a good quote, “Can’t we all just get along?” I don’t know for sure, but I think Rodney is neither happy nor attracted to others of his gender.
The new publishing world, the one that includes people like me and people like the meteoric Amanda Hocking and people like J.A. Konrath, seems to be something akin to the Wild West. Given that, I think I’ll call myself an indie author. The name seems to go with the territory, and as an extra benefit, it rankles all the right people.
To sum up, Nathan has had it right all along. There’s room for everybody at the table. Agents and publishers will continue to determine who gets in the gate of the pasture known as traditional writing and publishing. The public will decide who succeeds in the rough and tumble open range of indie or self-published or vanity or whatever-you-call-it writing and publishing. The name calling and the fighting over names serves no purpose. Call yourself whatever you want. Folks will figure it out. Just give the people what they want… whether it be entertainment or enlightenment or inspiration or space monkeys or space kapows of the cosmic kind. Why is Nathan’s batting average so good?
The reference to space monkeys is an inside joke for Bransford blog regulars, and the space kapow term refers to Nathan's debut middle-grade novel that is coming out on May 12.
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