This is a summary of a guest post I wrote for the blog of my dear friend Rivka Kawano (after whom a beloved Pearseus character is named). Rivka is a great friend of Indies, offering some great training and marketing advice. You can read the full post on her blog, Author Sensei.

Should I Publish Traditionally or Go Indie?

As you know, I’m a hybrid author. A short story and a book of mine have been traditionally published, but I have also self-published six books. So, I’m quite familiar with both means of publication, and have had plenty of positive experiences with them. Which is probably why it distresses me when people attack Indies.

Help! I’m Drowning

Opponents of self-publishing usually levy two charges against it: that there is no quality control, and that Indies will swamp the market.

The first argument, commonly referred to as the tsunami of crap, complains about the bad-quality books that Indie authors have, supposedly, unleashed upon unsuspecting readers. However, I have yet to come across a truly dreadful Indie book. So far, my experience has followed a traditional Bell curve – i.e. some books have not been to my liking, some I have loved, and many were in between.

Anyone Seen any Good Readers Lately?

The second charge against self-publishing is that, with everyone becoming a writer, we will run out of readers. This reminds me of a common fear a few years back, when I kept reading articles on how the Internet was bursting at the seams and we would soon run out of bandwidth, domain names, servers… You name it.

What these articles failed to take into account is that, any system growing rapidly, will also have more resources at its disposal. The millions of people joining the Internet fed its expansion. As a result, we now have ever increasing capacity and millions of unused names.

The same applies to books. For example, ever since I published my first book, I have been reading at an exponential rate. I can only hope that everyone becomes a writer, as this creates a whole new generation of readers!

As for the quality charge, why don’t you read my children’s book, Runaway Smile, online for free and make up your own mind?

You can read the full post on Rivka Kawano’s blog, Author Sensei.