Top Signs a Book is Self-Published

Last week, after publishing “Top Signs a Book is Self-Published“, we asked readers to send in their own lists.

Here are a few comments that came in:

Jane wrote:

You could add –

Page numbers on blank pages, and on pages like the title page where it is inappropriate.

Jane T.

N., a librarian, wrote:

Hi Angela,

Please leave my name out of this, but some other hints of a self-published title:

Authors demand that their local libraries buy multiple copies of their books.

They are upset said institution doesn’t leap for joy and create a display for their output.

Absolutely livid that their book has been donated to the book sale because it has only gone out twice in five years.

One local author (whose book is still on our library shelves), had an extremely steamy love scene in one of his novels. My supervisor found me doubled up with laughter when she found me reading the passage that indicated the characters had sax, rather than sex. The word was erroneously entered four times on that particular page. I had opened the book up at random, as many people do, and that, of course, was the particular page I found. I haven’t bothered to read further. Obviously it went through a spell check, but was not carefully proofread.

Thank you for your hard work, and keeping me up-to-date. I often refer writers to your website. Unfortunately, when smacked with a dash of reality, some are less than appreciative.

Regards,

N

Chandler wrote:

Angela,

Just as an aside, I have found the institutional biases against self-published books to be very discouraging. I do understand the reflexive bias against the tidal wave of sludge the gets ‘published’ these days, but it would be nice if there was some hope of being reviewed on merit. Examples: the Historical Novels Review will only consider self-published books for their online edition; the most prestigious award for my own book will not even consider any form of self-published book. Oh, well.

Chandler

ANGELA RESPONDS:

The only way to stop the discrimination occurring against self-published books is for our competitors to stop putting garbage on the market. Unfortunately, that will never happen.

WARM FUZZIES

When I was first with Xlibris, I should have known that it would not go well when they were not able to open a 400 meg graphic file that I could and I am not really a graphic artist. Some PODs are just not capable of producing good covers because they do not employ the best graphic artists and designers, but, thankfully, BookLocker does.

George Arnold Hall
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