Self-Publishing Poll

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

ysabetwordsmith pointed out this poll on self-publishing, which I visited briefly. After reading a handful of the comments, I was struck by their violence: there's a lot of emotion there in the people denouncing the practice of self-publishing. ysabetwordsmith said about that: "Any instance of extreme hostility raises the question of why people are being so violent about it."

I think that's a good question. Why do you think some of the people opposed to self-publishing are so hostile about it?


Edit: Please note, I'm not really interested in debating the profitability of the publishing industry. What I'm trying to understand, primarily, is why there's so much vitriol leveled by writers and readers at self-published authors (as in one of the commenters who said of self-published authors that they can "call themselves authors" but they never will be real ones). This kind of extreme behavior strikes me a strange. Particular coming from writers to other writers. And readers—that makes no sense at all. If they don't want to read self-published work, they can just... not read it. Why the anger?

What are your favorite self-published books?

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

We've been talking about self-published books and why so many people hate self-publishing.  It seems useful to collect a list of brilliant self-published books.  This can then be used as starter material for a panel, or articles, or whatnot to show people that self-publishing does not automatically make a book and its author "bad."  It would help promote crowdfunding, because many people erroneously equate crowdfunding with self-publishing simply because it isn't conventional publishing -- so we can include print editions of crowdfunded projects here too.

I suggest three categories: classic canon literature, contemporary literature sold directly to an author's fanbase, and nonfiction focused on a tiny niche.  Since we want this to be obviously awesome stuff, it would help a lot to limit it to titles that receive multiple recommendations (you can second someone else's suggestion). 

GREAT SELF-PUBLISHED BOOKS

Classic Canon Literature

Contemporary Literature Sold Directly to Author's Fanbase

Microniche Nonfiction