Is There Really a Villain Here?

I don't know how many of you, dear readers, have read anything about the wild 'n' crazy self-publishing movement going on. Self publishing has been going on for years, but it hasn't been until a few authors earned fame and fortune (Amanda Hocking, anyone?) through self publishing that your neighbor and their cat and their goldfish decided to jump on this bandwagon and try their hand at writing a book. And it helps that there are so many easy ways to do it.

With the ease of self-publishing, people (too many people, in my opinion) are questioning the value of publishing houses. This coming from the perspective of a self-published author, and I can't bring myself to play the publishing-house-hating game. It's just not fair.

Here's a list of some gripes against publishing houses:

• They offer small royalties
• They pay itty-bitty advances
• They retain rights to your work for a long while (relatively) so you can't do anything with it
• It can take upward of a year and a half or more to see your book in print once it's been accepted
• The competition is brutal to get anything published

These are all true. But here's the part that most people don't talk about:

Publishing is a business.

To read the rest of my article about the publishing business, jump on over to What's Your Story (and you can also enter to win a signed paperback of The Burn!)