All right, that’s not *exactly* true. I’m a writer. I always have words. But right now those words are coming out in a sputtering, expletive filled tirade. Why? Well, here. Go read this. I’ll wait.
About 13 months ago, I got a Kindle. Before that, my reading time was pretty limited. I carry a pretty heavy bag back and forth to work every day, so there simply wasn’t much room for books and I read so fast that I would have often needed to bring 2 books with me at a time. Plus, I tend to flit between two books (say fiction and non-fiction) on the same bus ride, so that could even require up to 4 books in my bag. Not going to happen.
But then came the Kindle. Awesome. I started checking books out from the library. And then, a friend turned me on to The Emperor’s Edge. “It’s free!” she said (for the first book). “Strong female lead!” she said. “I think you’d like it!” she said. Strictly speaking, I don’t think she used that many exclamation points, but the gist was the same.
So I tried it. Loved it. Seriously, by the time I was done I was in love with the characters and the story arc. I didn’t even realize at the time that it was self-published. But I bought the next book in the series. Loved that too. Then I started following the author on Twitter. Then I started following other authors on Twitter. And within a couple of months, I had perhaps 50 different self-published books on my Kindle. Today, the number of self-published books on my Kindle well exceeds the number of traditionally published books on my Kindle.
Is everything self-published great? Of course not. But have I enjoyed at least 95% of all self-published books I’ve read in the past year? Yes. Without a doubt.
So to hear this… person… dismiss all indie writers as crap… well, it’s enough for me to head to Smashwords and go on an indie author buying spree. I suppose in that respect, I should thank him. I’ll probably end up with at least two or three new authors I can’t wait to read.
Edited to add: I really wanted to respond with a comment on this guy’s blog. But I can’t get past the irony of him posting that vitriol on a very poorly formatted blogger.com blog. Brown header text on a brown background? White sidebar headers on light brown backgrounds that are too big for the background image? I kid you not. Every time I try, I just start laughing at my desk.