I am very proud of the fact that I persevered and found a publisher who adored my work as much as I do. They are a primarily digital house, meaning the majority of their titles are only available as eBooks.
There seems to be this HUGE misconception in the publishing world where people- published and non-published writers- think that epublishing is self publishing. Well let me tell you, it absolutely is not!
I have contracts with a fantastic publisher, Lyrical Press. They are an epublisher but by no means are they an avenue for writers to self publish their work. I had to submit and be reviewed before it was accepted for publication. Then I went through several rounds of copy edits, then line edits. Then I had to review a galley proof.
It really really irritates me to read blogs of writers and authors who use the terms epublishing and self publishing interchangeably. They are not the same. I am not self published.
Yes, there are many avenues online for writers to self publish and do it digitally. Amazon, Smashwords, etc...It's easier than ever to write anything you want and throw it out into the world of digitally publishing. But there are authors who have worked really hard with teams of editors through legitimate publishing houses that just so happen to also publish digitally.
I chose not to self publish and I need to state clearly that I am not trying to insult anyone who has chosen that route. I have read my fair share of self-published work. Some is good...some it is easy to tell the author did do the work necessary and has hired a professional editor to make sure the work is the highest quality possible. But I have also read utter crap where it is clear the author wanted to publish their work and had zero ability to see it's flaws. I honestly believe no writer is able to see all of their own flaws...and we do have them. If you think you don't, you are mistaken.
So please, give credit where credit is due. Don't call me a self-published author simply because my work is published electronically.
But the one fortunate thing here is the fact that the general non-writing, book-reading public does not know the difference. They will download ebooks that sound interesting to them and when they start reading the ones that obviously have had no editorial help, they'll lose faith in that author and stop spending their money on them. Thank God for sites like Goodreads!!
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