I listened last night to a long interview on TechNation with the founder of Blurb, a Web 2.0 company that makes it easy for people to self-publish books. They provide templates, print-on-demand, and a price that makes it possible for you to print up your cookbook, crackpot theories, or really bad novel.
As someone who admittedly craves the recognition of the publishing industry more than I want to see my words between the covers of a book, I found it somewhat painful to listen to the program. I have no objection to self-publishing per se; in fact, in the 90s I started my own magazine rather than submit my work to others. Part of the reason for that was because I did not think any publication would want to print my work, but that there still might be readers for it somewhere -- not many, but a few.
But with the novel I have written, I wanted to be able to actually get it published -- in the sense of being published by a real publisher, not myself. Because that's a clear goal for me, I am not very tempted by the notion of having it done by some web company; it would seem like an admission of defeat. But as I listened, I could imagine two things happening. First, there are people who self-publish books and then go on to see their work reach a wide audience -- more power to them. And second, there are innumerable well-meaning relatives of struggling writers who will hear that program and mention it the next time they talk to their child or nephew. "Susie, I heard about this neat web thing where you can publish your book. It sounded very professional. Why don't you do that?" And then the struggling writer sighs very loudly.
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I've done the "sigh very loudly" many times.
One thing to consider when talking about novels and mainstream publishing is that the decisions on what is published this way are made by perhaps a few hunderd editors and agents. They, in turn, tend towards publishing topics that interest them personally - a book they can "fall in love" with. (Read interviews with fiction agents and editors if you think otherwise.)
Unfortunately, most literature folks have the same educational backgroud (liberal arts) and the same daily experiences (living in a heavily urban environment). So they tend to like the same things. If your novel does not appeal to such a mindset, it doesn't matter if it's brilliant - it's not likely to get past the form-letter rejection stage.
In my own area of interest/expertise, I believe this is why you see so few novels which accurately portray the world of science and tehcnology - a very non-liberal arts endeavor. (See my essay at http://www.lablit.com/article/83 .)
In the end, you may end up self-publishing or going entirely online because you've picked the wrong topic, not because of poor writing quality or lack of a market.
Or your work may just suck - or both. Hard to know sometimes, though the online feedback for mine has been overwhelmingly positive.
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