Even if you’re not a book blogger, but ARE a writer please read this post and/or if you’re not either and love to give your point-of-view join in.

So Friday evening I read Kim Knight’s post about book bloggers discriminating against Indie authors. You can read that post here. After just coming off of vacation where I tried to read two poorly written Indie novels, I admitted that I wasn’t surprised. A lot of us book bloggers are reading a lot and if you have to struggle through over-writing and description that consists of “he’s hot” and “she’s a hot mess,” you start to veer away from new (and even some established) Indie writers. Evidently for some book bloggers, it’s now a non-starter, which is the topic of Kim’s post.

If you’re reading this and have been following me, you know that I book blog because I love books. I also write, so reading books for me is also about learning as much as I can, as well as (hopefully) enjoying the novel. And, thirdly, I work. I have a job and a home and outside commitments. Time is limited.

In the past I have stuck my nose up at DNF’s (did not finish) because who does that? Well, now I do. I feel that if a writer is self-publishing, but really doesn’t care about their craft (an Indie author answered “optimistic” to what point-of-view she writes in and it wasn’t tongue-in-cheek) and are producing quantity over quality, I don’t need to spend the time on it. There are plenty of other writers whose goal is to constantly improve their technique and learn with each book and those are the books I want to read and spend my time on.

Let me just state here: I am talking about writing, the actual mechanics that an author needs and should have learned to tell a story. I am talking about characterization and plotting and all of those things that can be learned by writing and READING.

And that is me.

I know that some readers don’t mind description that consists totally of “she’s a hot mess with brown hair” or five different moments in which she is described with a smile on her lips. (Where else is that smile going to be? Can’t we just write: she smiled?) Considering I only finished 19% of the novel, that was too much for me.

HOWEVER

amongst my reviews you will find Indie authors who I have thoroughly enjoyed reading. You will find Laura Florand, who was being traditionally published, but is now enjoying the control of publishing her own novels. Self-publishing is not the “vanity” publishing that it used to be. I will continue to read Indie writers and hope for the best.

If you’re a book blogger, what is your stance on this?

Writers, what’s your feeling about self-publishing?

I will tell you that I have observed prejudice against self-publishing by people who have not scoped out the current publishing world. I may have even been in that group a year ago, but having become immersed in the book world to the degree that I have, I see that it does not have the stigma it used to. People who write well and have a story to tell should be able to share it.

Lastly, I thought that maybe I would come up with a good idea, an Indie outreach, but I haven’t. I read some Indie already. The only thing I could think of is that maybe book bloggers could commit to one Indie book a month or every couple of months and try to spread the word about good Indie books.

Phew. That came out to a lot more words than I anticipated.

Now it’s your turn. Thoughts?