Self Publishing and Book Quality

A lot of people are wary of self published books because they think the books might be badly written. I only have partial sympathy for this worry, because I think the same problem exists in the conventional print world. There are so many conventional titles being produced that, while technically competent, are still books that I give up on after 120 pages. Just because an editor approved the book is no promise that the book will be good. In fact, the "play it safe" attitude means that conventional publishers most often only publish "marketable" books, or books which follow a safe, predictable and established formula. There are many good conventional books and many bad ones, the trick is filtering out the bad.

So just like in the conventional print world, this creates opportunities in the epublishing world: opportunities for good freelance editors, opportunities for good book reviewers to build a following of people that trust their reviews and even opportunities for artists to create cover art. The difference is one of scale, while the Internet allows for fragmentation it also allows for global reach. Likewise, electronic self publishing creates a huge influx of new titles all begging to be reviewed, discussed, and voted upon. It creates huge new opportunities for people to act as that quality filter between the mass of book titles and the mass of readers.