The Word Cloud

14 Comments

• 

  by Gerry 9 months ago

  Krupers! Watch out for your jugular if you mix it with Absolute Fight!
• 

  by EmmaD 9 months ago

  I know, it can be a real bear-pit, but it really does need to exist. And I hugely admire the sane and sensible people who go on and on challenging the nonsense that gets peddled.
• 

  by Debi 9 months ago

  Blood-soaked it may be, but there's some very important points raised in that thread.
• 

  by Athelstone 9 months ago

  Emma, the thread revolves around a document published by a Cloudie and regular blogger here, Dave Gaughran. Do you feel that he has been peddling myths and that the other participants in the thread are sane and sensible?
• 

  by Aonghus Fallon 9 months ago

  Maybe I'm biased - Dave is a fellow Irishman and I read his blog regularly - but I thought the other contributors on the blog were a bit OTT and on occasions downright rude.
  
  The commentators deliberately ignored the context - which is that this book was being sold as a newbie's experience of self-publishing and that this was its principle selling point. They preferred to depict David as some sort of snakeoil salesman trying to pull a fast one on a gullible public. And this was pretty typical of their attitude as a whole. Huffing and puffing about how many books are actually pulped in Canada per year doesn't change the fact that you don't have to pulp an e-book. Hard copy books are always going to be more environmentally unfriendly than virtual ones. And I'm speaking as somebody who still prefers an actual book to reading something on my kindle.
  
  I bought the book myself. I haven't got around to reading it. However I have read the blogs on which it was based and reckon they were easily worth what David was charging. The fact that you can download the PDF version for free only establishes that it was never his intention to make money but to share his experiences.
• 

  by Ron Blanco 9 months ago

  Aha! The Establishment try to suppress the self-publishing revolution. Personally, I would like to have seen DG and Jane Smith debate the pros and cons of self-publishing, as they both have some very interesting things to say. Instead, it seems like a (partially successful) attempt to discredit a self-publishing preacher.
• 

  by Aonghus Fallon 9 months ago

  Subsequently googled a bit and came across this link - http://write2publish.blogspot.com/2011/06/ive-been-banned.html
  
  Nice.
• 

  by SecretSpi 9 months ago

  Blimey! Do some of those commentators have lives/families/work for a living? Talk about bitter and twisted - however interesting the debate may be, I'm afraid I didn't have time to wade through all the bile to get to the salient points...
• 

  by mike 9 months ago

  I can't find the book for the moment, but a book on the Victorian publishing trade on 'Dicks' publishing company was published by 'Lulu' ( I think i mentioned this book before) - From the extracts permitted, it seems to be well written and, from the bibliography included at the end, the author had read many of the books on victorian publishing that i had done. i suspect the book had been written by a descendant of the publisher. It might be very difficult to find a publisher for this sort of book, but the information is of interest to those who research the period.
  What comments there are on self-publishing seem to refer to fiction. There was an article in the 'Evening Standard' of last week about an author who had persuaded all her friends to buy her book on ;Kindle' and thus she mananged to move up their best-selling ratings and, subsequently had her books accepted by a conventional publishing company. I think this had been done by writers pre-internet. i cannot remember who it was, but he bought up the whole edition of his books and put them in his garage and he, thus, entered the best-seller list and got the required publicity. Sorry about my rushed e.mail. i am off to work. I don't get back till late and only really have Sunday to write. I read 250 pages of Pendennis yesterday, instead of wirting, and the novel hasn't really started Time well spent, I think -or not? Is Thackerary much read now, apart from Vanity Fair? Lots of non-sequitors etc. sorry. I have just finished a book called 'The uses of pessimism' by Roger Scruton. and have got through about fifty pages of 'Gissings' New Grub Street.'
• 

  by trafalgar 9 months ago

  I looked around at various writer's forums before finally signing up to the Cloud earlier this year. I spent a couple of days on each site, reading posts, getting the feel of things, seeing if I liked them before making any decision. Sadly, I have to say that AW's water cooler appeared to be mainly a vitriol dispenser. I know we have our disagreements, occasionally, on here but, on the whole people are respectful, helpful and kind. Which is as it should be, but so often isn't, elsewhere.
• 

  by Skylark 9 months ago

  Gosh, makes our fluffy Cloud fall-outs seem tame in comparison. I don't really know where I sit with the whole self-publishing debate (except that I know I'm not suited to self-publishing) as there is so much mis-information out there (on both sides) but reading that lot (and the extra link that Aonghus provided) it seemed like the anti-self-publishers did themselves no favours there by descending into profanity and banning a couple of posters for expressing opinions. Phew!
• 

  by EmmaD 9 months ago

  Yes, Absolute Write is a real bear-pit, but that doesn't mean that what emerges is all nonsense. (I know people who feel the same about Authonomy) And some people do continue to keep their tempers and have a proper debate, while the insults are flying on another level, so if one can put one's crap-filtering glasses on there are things there worth thinking about. I haven't been following dgaughran's posts on here - I posted the link because one thing I have noticed in the general way in the debate about self-publishing on the net is that very often what's quoted as statistics simply aren't true, either because they're just plain wrong, or they're irrelevant to the market today because they're a hundred years old.
  
  Self-publishing is such a valuable resource, and has got so much easier, that many more people are considering it for all sorts of projects - me included, because I've got a couple of projects I'd like to pursue which seem to me very suited to it. But that makes it even more important to understand the truth of how it works, the possiblities, the variables and the pitfalls.
  
  And the only way you can be sure you're getting some truth is to be listening to someone who has a real, solid track-record of many publications of many kinds on many platforms, over time. You wouldn't let your novel be represented by someone who called themselves an agent but who turned out only to have sold a few poems or short stories; it would be equally daft to allow your path to and through self-publishing be steered by someone with the equivalent track-record.
• 

  by Caducean Whisks 9 months ago

  Crikey, the brickbats flying around that writing world (especially Aonghus's link) remind me of the corporate life I left - except people were generally civil when they were rude.
  Looks like you can tuck under your belt the 'million words you need to write', just by getting involved in a forum discussion like that. Scary.
• 

  by Nutsinmay 9 months ago

  I never thought to self publish...I just wanted to mosey over to www.createspace.com after the www.nanowrimo winner post and pick up a free copy of my "book". And then I was hooked. I could n't leave without tidying up. And then I couldn't leave without having a bash at all that lovely techno digital mush...and then I got really frustrated...I was beat by IT. But there was a way out...to ask for help. I did and I got the most sweet life saving help in the world. At a price of course...nothing is free, you know that. But the price was not really exorbitant and the time saved was stupendous. it has taken exactly nine months for me to birth a book from November 2010 to now, any day now. it is out of my hands. I am looking forward to seeing how it thrives or dies.As my coach said, now the real work starts! I recommend self publishing with help from dh@lighthouse24.com