Yes, I watch ‘Family Guy.’ Call it a guilty pleasure, but I’m not apologizing. It’s one of those shows you can sit back and watch without having to do a lot of thinking and get a few cheap laughs.

Believe or not, however, a recent episode I watched dealt with (in the beginning) self-publishing. To give you a brief synopsis: Peter Griffin is disappointed by the quality of the erotica at his local adult bookstore. So he writes a letter to the publisher expressing his views and also writes an example of how he would write an erotic novel.

Peter shows the letter to his friends and they are very impressed with his writing. He writes a little bit more and again, shares it with his friends and with his wife Lois. Everyone loves his work. Then, Lois suggests he self-publish his writing and tells him to ask her father, Carter Pewterschmidt (a billionaire industrialist), for some seed money. Carter gives Peter five bucks.

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Garrison Keillor is the latest author to slam self-publishing in a recent NYT Op-Ed. His rant is typical of those who hate indie authors who go it alone into the world of self-publishing. And in the same Op-Ed, Keillor manages to take a swipe at modern technology.

I don’t know what it is about self-publishing that drives some people nuts. After all, musicians who skip the large record labels and become “indie” are widely respected and have successfully thrown themselves into the mainstream – with little to no criticism. So why are indie authors seen differently?

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I always love to read author’s self-publishing success stories. They are not only very inspiring, but these stories chip away at the negative stigma of self-publishing. The route these authors take is a hard one, they don’t have the resources of a large publishing house and distributor behind them. Thus they often have to promote their work themselves using their own websites, Twitter, Facebook and other methods.

But one author has taken self-publishing to a whole new level. Christopher Herz decided to use the POD model with his book The Last Block in Harlem (aff link) and then take it to the streets, literally. He’d hand sell one copy at a time to strangers on the street. You might recall that I wrote about him in my previous post Author sells self-published book one copy at a time. His efforts were even picked up by Publishers Weekly. Well, all of his hard work has finally paid off.

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The other day I wrote the post Giving it away for free: Obscurity vs. Making Money as a Writer. In it, I argued that giving books away for free is not going to hurt a writer’s career. In fact, free books can give writers (especially unknown writers) a boost and increase sales of future books.

The post was prompted by an article I read by Angela Hoy from http://www.writersweekly.com entitled Think Twice Before Giving Away Your Entire Book Online for Free. While I have a lot of respect for Angela and read her weekly newsletter every week, I have to disagree on this point.

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The debate about whether or not it’s a good idea for authors to provide their work for free (especially back titles) continues to rage on around the internet. I usually think of this in terms of ebooks, as they are easier to give away for free without the burden of printing and shipping costs.

The main argument in favor of giving your works away for free goes something like this: You provide an ebook or two for free, and it will give readers a sampling of your work, enticing them to buy future ebooks that they would, of course, pay for. This has worked for many authors who claim that giving their stuff away does increase their sales of other books.

On the flip side, the argument against giving your work away for free is that readers will expect it for free and will expect the same thing with all of your books, thus no one will want to pay. Why pay when you can get it for free, right? The other issue that comes into play here is that authors should be fairly compensated for their work.

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Self-publishing in Egypt doesn’t quite carry the stigma it does in the U.S. and other parts of the world. It appears just the opposite, that traditional publishing carries the negative stigma. I found this article Self-publishing in Egypt: Vanity? that explains:

But here in Egypt, many serious authors self-publish, or do something much like it…but most serious young writers slog and toil and then slog and toil some more, getting their book printed, shepherding it into bookstores, and getting it sold. Much of it on their own dime.

This almost makes it seem like the “slog and toil” of getting their books into print and then selling them to bookstores is a rite of passage. And self-publishing commands much more respect than sending off a manuscript to a traditional publisher and having them do most of the work.

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I’ve always had a crazy dream of self-publishing a book, filling the trunk of my car with as many cases of my books that will fit, and drive around the country selling them to anyone and everyone. I’d hit as many craft fairs and county fairs as I could. Heck, I’d even set up shop in parking lots.

The logistics of a dream like this would be a nightmare – not to mention bankrolling the drive around the country. It’d be hard to break even. But the thought is still nice because it embodies the independent spirit that many of us have pulsating through our veins.

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I love books. I love reading books. There’s nothing more satisfying than finishing a good novel, especially one that keeps me thinking about the plot and characters long after I read the last page. But sometimes I like having more than just the story. I’m always pleasantly surprised when the author includes notes, written interviews or any other ‘extras’ that can illuminate the story even more.

On a simple level, all of you have seen this before (especially those with young kids). When you buy a kids book, the book has the written story, but it also has illustrations that complement the story and bring it to life in a way not possible with just words. Some childrens books even have accompanying stuffed animals and other toys (sold separately, of course).

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The past 10 years have seen a lot of changes in the publishing world. The biggest change of them all is ebooks. 10 years ago ebooks were a still a novelty enjoyed by mostly techies/geeks and were a popular product for online multi-level marketing schemes where ebook topics dealt mostly with get-quick-rich marketing methods and the like. The ebooks were of poor quality and filled with grammar/spelling errors. This probably did more to damage the reputation of ebooks than anything else.

Fast forward to 2009 and ebooks are becoming much more mainstream (still a small segment of the publishing industry, but growing) and publishers are now scrambling to figure out how to deal with this new form of consuming our favorite literary works. Add to that the family of ebook readers from Sony, Amazon and now Barnes & Noble, I think it’s safe to say that ebooks aren’t going anywhere.

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This is Part 2 of Why indie authors will break traditional publishers. In Part 2 I talk about what indie authors can learn from the music industry, the one advantage traditional publishers have and how indie authors are countering that advantage. You can read Part 1 here.

Independent ebook websites like Smashwords and Feedbooks are giving indie authors an unprecedented advantage by letting these authors distribute their work without the gatekeeper of traditional publishers. While the digital domain has not been perfected, indie authors are coming out of hiding and setting their writing free into the world. Continue Reading