Self-publishing: Pulling back the curtain

Hi Everyone, I've just launched a new project that will aim to provide a properly curated digital marketplace of publishing services (editors, designers, marketers) for writers. The site so far can be seen at www.scribis.com.

To give you a bit of the philosophy behind the site, here's a very short blog I recently wrote. The idea would be to bring transparency and proper support to the industry.

I've also recently published a n e-book providing an introduction to self-publishing which is available to download for free on the site. Please take a look.

Thanks

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It is now a pretty indisputable fact that self-publishing has gone mainstream. Would-be writers everywhere are putting pen to paper and fingers to keys and unleashing upon the world the stories they always felt they had inside of them. But the impressive stats grabbing headlines everywhere, which herald in a new age of writing, are clouding the fact that currently the industry surrounding self-publishing is a) woefully underdeveloped and b) where developed, murky.

With received wisdom still being forged, often by the very companies that authors are finding themselves needing to rely on for advice and assistance, the chances of being ripped-off are huge. There are even mutterings that the Writer’s and Artists’ Yearbook’s mini-site, promising transparency and impartiality, is actually anything but.

Commentators talk about improved services for writers as being empowering; shifting the balance from gatekeepers to artists. But I would argue that this is not what we are actually seeing. What we are seeing is white label front ends, over-charging and outsourcing to providers with little specialist experience. Self-publishing, independent publishing, whatever you’d like to call it. What we need is transparency in the industry and recognition that writers should be helped to produce outstanding content, not to line the wallets of grubby opportunists.