Frankly, I'd rather make a little bit less money if it means living in a better world for books and publishing in the future.
Maybe self-publishing is going to be an extra step added to publishing. Maybe what's going to happen is you self-publish a book, someone notices it - an agent? - and it goes from there into the traditional sphere.
Electronic distribution is more of a fall-back strategy for putting out a book that isn't deemed profitable enough to print. You hardly make any money publishing an electronic book.
I didn't go to the right schools, didn't come from a well-known family, nor was I even remotely connected to a powerful publishing dynasty.
The future of publishing lies with the small and medium-sized presses, because the big publishers in New York are all part of huge conglomerates.
Any institution becomes a community - whether it's a high school or a boarding school or a publishing company or a small town where everybody knows certain things about people.
I think I've read all of W.E.B. Du Bois, which is a lot. He started off with comprehensive field work in Philadelphia, publishing a book in 1899 called 'The Philadelphia Negro'. It was this wonderful combination of clear statistical data and ethnographic data.
There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to find sensible men to read it.
Kindle Singles is publishing on skates. It prints like lightning; our book meets readers in hours. I've spent so many years waiting for publishers to consider whether they wanted to print a book of mine, making contracts, taking months to fit it into the Fall list or the Spring list, fitting it into an advertising plan.
Amazon is such a big player in publishing, but a lot of authors feel this connection to their publishing house and their editors who helped them get their books out there, so their loyalties tend to go that way.
Publishing your work is important. Even if you are giving a piece to some smaller publication for free, you will learn something about your writing. The editor will say something, friends will mention it. You will learn.
In a way, publishing in 2005 was similar to publishing in 1950. Nobody kept blogs; that was still optional. I didn't even have a website then.
The original idea of blog publishing was that writer and reader would be on the same level. That it would be a conversation - not a lecture. People lost sight of that. We didn't. Kinja is designed to break down the walls of the ghettos. So that everybody - editor, writer, source, subject, expert, fan - can be a contributor.
So, while I gave up the notions of publishing at that time, I never stopped editing and refining that book. A few years later, in 1987, I thought I had it ready to go out again.
Digital-Original publishing embraces the non-conventional and genre-busting story. It allows me to share good stories with readers who will enjoy them, and at a reasonable price.
Even though I've reached retirement age, I still plan to work - writing my investment newsletter, speaking at conferences, publishing books, and producing conferences like FreedomFest.
At first my publisher had reservations about publishing it in the form you are familiar with.
To newspapers and publishing houses I urge the use of fact over fiction, freedom of the press, and responsibility at all times.
I knew people were independently publishing, and I buy books on Amazon. I began seriously considering it when Amanda Hocking was in the news about her self-publishing success.
I had written a book. For various reasons, the publishing industry had decided that my book was going to be 'important.' The novel had taken me 12-and-a-half years to write, and after being with the book for so long, I had no real perspective on the merits or demerits of what I had written. I hoped it was good, but feared that it wasn't.
We're also far enough from the publishing power that we have no access to the politics of publishing, although there are interpersonal politics, of course.
As the Kindle's dread grip on digital publishing is challenged by tablet computers and Android smartphones, with their bright screens and high resolution, the need for illustration is growing.
To read a book, to think it over, and to write out notes is a useful exercise; a book which will not repay some hard thought is not worth publishing.
What's different now is that while political leaders used to give talking points to talk radio, now talk-radio hosts are giving talking points to political leaders. It's all part of the suffocating spin cycle we're in. In media, politics and publishing, the conventional wisdom is to play to this base.
I got a publishing deal with BMG, they were supportive, and some money to record demos.
I like to joke that I probably hold the world record for rejection letters. Yes, the truth is that I was fed up of being rejected repeatedly, and self-publication was an act of defiance at traditional publishing. But life works in strange ways.
I maintain an ongoing survey of Internet Publishing and self publishing, so that it is now possible for any writer with a book to get it published at nominal cost or free, and to have it on sale at booksellers like Amazon.com.
With the greatest of respect, I have watched Apple from the day it started. I was publishing magazines about the Apple II before most people had ever heard what a personal computer was.
Some of the biggest changes that have happened are behind the scenes, in the way we produce the magazine. E.g., much of our production has been brought in-house via desktop publishing.
As we've gotten more successful, there's a gap between the speed of our publishing pipeline and the speed of our receiving submissions pipeline. Our pipeline of leaks has been increasing exponentially as our profile rises, and our ability to publish is increasing linearly.
If you have a song that you think sounds like another song you should contact the publishing company and say I have a song here, let's cut a deal that lets everyone walk away feeling good.
Alan's publishing company was in the Brill Building, and of course, the Brill Building was where all the songwriters hung out because that's where all the publishers were.
The Big Five publishing companies are dinosaurs trying to survive in a post-meteor world. They won't.
I took the process of doing as much myself as I could like a duck to water. I set up my own label and publishing, etc, and it was a fun learning curve two decades ago.
I continued writing the bad plays which fortunately nobody would produce, just as no one did me the unkindness of publishing my early novels.
There is a lust in man no charm can tame: Of loudly publishing his neighbor's shame: On eagles wings immortal scandals fly, while virtuous actions are born and die.