Living in obscurity.

[ein_myria]

Does it mean you've hit the limelight if e-book pirates chose to share your work online? If so, congratulations!

Curiously, I was looking at Karin Kallmaker's list of Ye Olde Myths of Piracy and was unsatisfied with the supporting evidence. The "myth" about authors actually earning more money? Well, it's not a myth in the sense that it's not real. Mercedes Lackey and several other authors who were part of the Baen Free Library experiment had sales of their books increase after they released it for free in 2002. Even MIT press and other academic presses had several works lifted out of obscurity and sold more printed copies precisely because the works were available for free. Obviously, this does not translate unilaterally across the board, but it's good to know all the facts on hand before we make a judgment.

Comments

[leavethesky]

Yeah, those are great links (there's even a link to one of my fav sites, Writer Beware Blogs!). But I don't think most wannabe writers are seeing the link between POD and these small niche presses. The case from your anon commenter pretty much says it all. S/he still has no control over her book and is seeing no profits even though it is still being distributed in different formats. Worse, the 'reputable' lgbt publishers are going out of business or are in serious trouble, which leaves us with nothing but the niche presses to publish 'our' work. I feel like there should be more discussion about this in the community because I see so many fic authors trying desperately to get published this way and I want to warn them that this is no the road to success. Only a traditional publisher can offer even a hope (and a remote one at that) of that kind of success. Unless, of course ,someone happens to be a marketing whiz. Even then, you can't make the market.

Nicola Griffith is also talking about POD (Ask Nicola: Why self-publishing looks more and more attractive) because she's looking at releasing some older works that way, but even she concedes that she has an established name and even then the risks are high.

[ein_myria]

You're right about traditional publishing. Aside from Nicola Griffith, the other names that I can point out at the drop of a hat--Jeanette Winterson (Penguin / Bloomsbury), Sarah Waters (Virago), Val McDermid (Harper Collins / Little, Brown), and so on--they've done well in more mainstream presses that aren't limited to publishing lesbian fiction.