Splat

[rolanni]

...also?

Oww.

So! Kirkus Reviews sees Harlequin's vanity publishing plan and realizes, ohmighod, those books will never get reviewed in a traditional venue, like, say Kirkus, and! there's money in them thar hills.

Announcing Kirkus Discoveries, where "independently published authors" can, for a mere $400 purchase a review*.

I think we're moving toward a business model here where only the wealthy can afford to publish. Maybe I'd better start a bookstore for "independently published authors" and sell shelf-space by the per-foot.

going to go bang my head against my desk now

Edited to add: OK; Kirkus was more forward-looking than Harlequin; here's a 2004 opinion piece on the Discoveries program, from the Christian Science Monitor. Thanks to slrose and janni for the heads-up.


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*Just in case someone doesn't know -- No, here in Genre Fiction Land we don't pay for reviews, either.

Comments

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Self-pub... not so good a reputation, still. I have people try to throw it my face once in awhile about SRM.

Maybe I need to start a monthly review pub ...

[dqg-neal.livejournal.com]

You still aren't the Tom, Dick, and Harry self-published author. I find it a completely different category.

I wasn't attempting to go into one of those types of discussions. Mainly a reference to the fact that there are an awful lot of books out there for a review place to go through. The larger ones seem to make excuses or have more hoops to jump through to cut down the number of review submissions.

[anisosynchronic.livejournal.com]

There are some differences--"self publishing" by people who have a commercial market of frustrated readers who want what standard commercial distribution channels literally won't buy and will put money out for it (making it commercial de facto), is different from someone trying to build a commercial audience who has no existing readership and whose mastery of such things as basic grammar, character development, plotting, etc., are suspect...