More on self publishing: perceived value + quality = credibility?

Hola from beautiful Spain. As I write, I'm traveling up to Avila and Segovia, willing the Internet and BlackBerry to cooperate.

I thought the comments on my last post about perceived value and credibility were great, because they are at the heart of the dilemma facing self published authors: how do we escape the collective stigma currently associated with our work?

In part, it requires good writing. Someone on Twitter who I'll paraphrase said, "Self publish but write like you're aiming for one of the big NY six." Great advice. Self publishing is commonly associated with unedited crap, poor covers and general unintelligible nonsense. That's not my sweeping generalization, by the way, it's a perception I've heard on discussion boards and within my own writing circle, and seen in some self published books. The crap doesn't do any self published author's cause any good. Can we all agree on that?

The question that arises is; what is the mark of good, self published writing that rises to the standard of the NY six? Used to be that an agent or editor would be the gatekeeper to spot this gold standard. Self publishing has circumvented that. Proponents of it are asking our potential readers to make that judgment with their minds and more importantly, wallets.

This in turn leads to perceived value. Since self publishing has gotten such a bad rap, the perceptions of its value are not overwhelmingly in favor. It often feels like those of us who do it have to pass a higher bar to gain approval. Say someone has a quality book, as judged by agents and editors who may have read it but declined to publish for reasons that have nothing to do with the writing, and makes the foray into self publishing. Without an aggressive marketing plan, including building word of mouth advertising, that author's efforts will flounder. How does word of mouth spread when an intended audience won't even consider it?

Again, if we feel a little persecuted and overwhelmed, can you blame us? I can't agree with an earlier comment that we are not targeted and picked on. I speak from personal experience. I know I'm breaking a cardinal rule about ignoring bad reviews but I have to, in order to bring home the point. One of my unfavorable reviews was followed up by the less flattering comment, "Another self publishing dud, huh?" Pissed me off more than the actual review. I've seen similar comments on other self published works. Can we deny the perception is out there? It makes me so angry that as hard as authors work, this collective perception is used to canvas self published works regardless of their quality. It implies that as hard as we work, the perceived value of that work will never rise. How can we change entrenched views when, at times, the very audience we are trying to reach has already dismissed our work without reading it? How do we gain credibilty?

I don't expect to change opinions on either side of these issues but it's useless to pretend they don't exist. I will continue to resent them, point them out where they exist and do my damn best to avoid being mired by them. Something tells me I've got a hard road ahead of me. Good thing for me, I don't mind hard work. Part of why I write historical fiction.