Quote:I've got a few half written books but life dictates that I don't have the time or money to to bury myself in archives and visit many far afield locations locations to come up with original material. But then no-one would publish or read the stuff either. If I disappear for three months my business disappears forever.
Self-publishing is the way to go. It once had the drawback that it would prove nearly impossible to find such books, but today online self-publishing can get one easily on abebooks, amazon and other storefronts that make it possible for everyone at all times to both locate and buy the book...without huge stocks of unsold materials.
If we examine top-shelf, brass-plate publishing (both academic & mainstream ), we should consider "bargain bins" (used books fairs/half price fairs selling new books) that offer us for a nominal cost (a fraction of the cover price) books that were the "must have" just last season...last year...three years ago.
How does that factor into the books' success chart is one's guess.
What a good book is, and how to attain mainstream status, is one's guess...Harry Potter's and Dune's first edition went bunk, before finding talent scouts who could milk billions out of it...then again, those talent scouts could milk billions out of trivia any half-drunk scribbler may write.
In fact both Harry Potter & Lord of the Rings movies prompted an upsurge in "fantasy" books that are a pale imitation of the already mediocre antecedent...many of these are thick, 500-800-1200 pages books, often made up of several books: do people really read all that filler?
Once reputed top-shelf scholarship, books dissecting the "atrocity" myth in the aftermath of WWI have in recent decades wisely disappeared and seldom reappear printed by fringe advocacy groups.
Academic print is the same: it amounts more to a seal of approval by the establishment certifying that you do not represent a threat to any kind of orthodoxy than otherwise; many academic presses mill super-expensive books ( I saw some costing as much as $250 for mere black&white print) that won't sell in a fashion similar to the worst novelty press.
Again, read ten reviews of the same book across ten different scholarly journals...you will get from raving endorsement to raving criticism...so?
A.A Mole University
B.A London Institute of Applied Research
B.Sc Millard Fillmore
M.A International Institute for Advanced Studies
Ph.D London Institute of Applied Research
Ph.D Millard Fillmore
B.A London Institute of Applied Research
B.Sc Millard Fillmore
M.A International Institute for Advanced Studies
Ph.D London Institute of Applied Research
Ph.D Millard Fillmore