Lies make the Stigma go away.

[robcallahan]

If you self-publish, apparently, any and all traditionally published work to your credit ceases to exist. It's all simply lost the Time War. It becomes null and void in terms of lending itself to your credibility. I'm a little surprised, honestly. I knew this was the case five years ago but I thought things had changed since then. With established

Comments

[speedie316]

Yeah, you're such a hack.
Make the stupid people go away...

[robcallahan]

Confessions

[lars_larsen]

Marketing is, by definition, lying.

[robcallahan]

As is writing, but somehow I failed to grasp that connection. I blame my activist days in the nineties.

[lars_larsen]

See, I dont fall for that stuff. I know sherlock holmes isnt real!

[pjvj]

I don't pretend to understand the snobbish games that occur in the publishing world en ré self-publish versus industry publish. I will give them that anyone can self-publish, but it seems to me that if the work is good, then it is so, regardless of how it is published. And 'Damaged Goods' *is* good. Period.

[robcallahan]

I suspect that much of the current prevailing attitude grows from the highly-publicized controversy over such scams as PublishAmerica.

That, and the well-known fact that if it was any good, it would be published by a major house. It's the same sort of attitude that keeps the bulk of indie bands and films from realizing widespread success, but I'm always surprised to find it in the books industry, namely because I always associate recreational reading with smart people.

Then again, I might really suck and you all might just be too nice to tell me.

[pjvj]

>>>Then again, I might really suck and you all might just be too nice to tell me.<<<

Trust me (Penda will verify this), I am *not* too nice to tell you that you suck if you do. You just don't suck.

[margoeve]

So, what fucktard stuck in the 20th century hack turned you away?

[robcallahan]

That would be wikipedia. I wouldn't mind so much if they'd questoined the entry due to bias (I helped compose the bulk of it, which I know I shouldn't, but I'm a bad boy) but I doubt the merit of their ultimate choice of reasons.

I'm going to run into this a lot as my hard-working publicist starts scheduling me for signings, panels and the like, so I thought it best to get it off of my chest now. If not, you'll have to put up with my repeated ranting all Spring and Summer.

Fortunately I am welcome in at least one venue, wherein an official book launching event is scheduled for January. That, if nothing else, should be a blast.

[margoeve]

Wikipedia? Wiki-fucking-pedia?!?

God I hate that site. I really do. I can't get college juniors to stop misusing it as a "scholarly resource." So I banned it from research papers.

So, don't be too upset. You wouldn't want to be associated with them anyway.

If I Haven't Seen It, It's New To Me.

[robcallahan]

Fair enough. I wouldn't consider it a scholarly resource myself, but its contributors are a good sample population for social experiments involving me. People who spend way too much time online and feel superior to everyone else are my bread and butter (presumably because they're looking for an author with whom they can identify) and if this little cross-section demonstrates anything, it is that people, in general, will refuse to acknowledge something they've never heard of...

The whole affair has got me in a foamingly epistemological state and wanting to argue points of justified true belief, but feeling instead as though I don't have time to compete with a giant nerd clique such as theirs. I mean, really, God gets an entry but a real person who, as far as I can tell, meets the notability criteria, does not?

And now I come to find out that this isn't the first time an entry on me has gone up and been taken down. Knowing that I'm unliked just makes me feel all emo inside, and I'm too old for that...