Self-Publishing and the Health Care Debate

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 | Posted by: Henry Baum

I’m tempted to put this on the Self-Publishing Review, but I’ve made a point of not getting overly political there - but this comes out of a discussion on the site. Self-publishing is non-partisan, and in my travels in the world of self-publishing I’ve been led to some self-publishers’ blogs with a political bent that I find pretty appalling. But Backword’s another issue. I don’t know the political affiliations of the other Backword writers, but I don’t represent everyone. In recent weeks I’ve become obsessed with two different things:

1. Finishing my novel. Finally.
2. The health care debate.

They’re actually somewhat related because my novel’s about an uber-right wing president who wants to bring the Book of Revelation to life (among other things, but that’s a large thread). Basically a depiction of the most paranoid visions of what the far right is capable of. The president in my novel is part Palin and part Hitler – 70% Palin, 30% Hitler. So watching this healthcare debate unfold has been particularly fascinating because the ultra-right has had such a loud voice with cries of Nazi, socialism, and other things that have no basis in reality.

I have to interject – when did private industry become the preferred method of commerce? People say the government can’t run health care because they can’t run the post office. Well, wasn’t the meltdown of the financial industry between 2006 and 2008 evidence that the financial industry can’t be trusted without government interference - i.e. regulation? I swear, watching people screaming “I believe in the constitution” and “I want my country back” has made me very cynical about the prospects for this country. Hopefully they’re in the minority – and are just in the majority on TV, as damaging as that may be.

Anyway – getting back to books. The failures in the traditional publishing industry have coincided with failures in other industries, so one of the rallying cries for self-publishing is that it can be anti-corporate and anti-greed. The publishing industry is mostly concerned with quick money-makers no differently than how the mortgage market packaged unsustainable mortgages. So when you criticize self-publishers you’re really criticizing people who are working outside of an unsustainable system. In other words, they’re the good guys, not the bad guys.

It’s getting to the point, though, that this kind of defense of self-publishing is becoming less and less necessary. Check out this post from a keynote speaker at the Writer’s Digest conference:

That means that blogs and self-published books using ebook and print-on-demand models are now part of the overall commercial structure of publishing. They are not something separate and inferior, as “vanity publishing” was in the past.

The only thing separating self-publishing from regular publishing is distribution – not content. The content’s fine and people will finally get used to writers releasing their own books, just like they’re used to blogs. That’s inevitable, not a fantasy. Given that Sony just released a very awesome wifi e-reader, better distribution is also a possibility. It’s coming.

The issue then is not if self-publishing is good or bad – because anyone who argues the latter is a “Deather” of the publishing industry. Attacking something that can help people. What’s really at stake is how many people will read any type of book – how dumbed-down culture will inevitably become. If the health care debate is any evidence, we’re devolving. A time when you can have a woman touting her “Biblical values” saying “Heil Hitler” to an Israeli. It’s like we live in oppositeland. At least I might be onto something with my novel because it explores this type of hysteria.

I’m not totally cynical yet, because where there’s increased distribution potential for independent-minded writers, there’s increased access to information. The niche communities of interested readers will grow. But the health care spectacle has frankly been pretty depressing about how incredibly stupid people can be – not only that, how their voices can be amplified by the media as if the lunatics are worth attention. Of course there are opponents to a Democratic bill – 50 million people voted for McCain/Palin – you get 5 million of those people to march and it will look like a “movement.” It’s frankly terrifying that dining room tables have been running the debate. But things will level out, as they always do. For all the bickering about self-publishing being inferior, self-publishing is going to grow and gain credibility, just as health care legislation is not going to set the constitution on fire. I guess I’m an optimist.