I came across an interesting back-post on Editor Unleashed this morning about self-publishing, in which a number of people were of the opinion that most self-published books ’should never have been published’.  I rather took umbrage to these self-important folk presuming to say what should and should not be published, based solely on conventional, commercial values.  Even a ‘badly-written’ book can say something to someone, and its form should not be allowed to overshadow its content.

As one who has batted for both sides as it were, having recently published a novel myself after having twelve non-fiction books put out by mainstream publishers, I felt justified in posting a comment outlining my own experiences.  You can read the full post here.  What do you think of this issue?  To me, it has ‘The Future of Publishing’ written all over it.  Consider just this: my self-published book took four days from finished manuscript to printed book; the contract for one of my conventional ones said: “the Publishers undertake to publish the Work within eighteen months of receipt of the final manuscript”. (Admittedly that was before general use of computer typesetting, but still an interesting contrast).

What does seem to stand out, however, is the importance of ruthless, knowledgeable editing to knock a preliminary draft into a finished manuscript.  Jane Smith at The Self Publishing Review has a simple reviewing technique – she reads a book until she clocks up 15 grammatical errors, then she stops.  It is rather worrying how often she stops.  However, this is a fault of bad writing and/or carelessness, not of self-publishing per se.  Commercially published writers can leave all that editing drudge to their publishers.  Self publishers are no different.