I'm not into making drawings or paintings myself, but still, I did make this quite nice picture which may end up as an illustration for one of the children books I'm working on at the moment. How is that possible when I haven't even attended art school? Well, with the new tool Al many things that weren't possible now are becoming everyday events. Atthe moment I'm not able to explain what Al is, but still I use it for pictures. Being a writer who enjoys the process of writing I may also try my hand at Al-writing and publishing, but that's not my first priority: I write, thus I'm a WRITER, should I use Al for writing I would feel that I lost my right to identify as a writer. However, I'm not blind to the fact that modern times also mean modern measures, and Al seems to have come to stay with us, writers or not.
Writing may be a job like other jobs or it may be something more personal. To me it definitely is personal, although I feel more for some of my writings than for others. In that respect one might say that I'm like a mother with favorite children.
The books themselves were all right as to looks, but not in an outstanding manner. That didn't worry me as I was more interested in the fact that I had had them published than in their looks. However, there was one thing I resented, i.e. that some people stressed the point that AuthorHouse was called a "Vanity publishing house" because the authors who published with them were supposed to publish out of vanity paying for their services. The old kind of publishers, which I knew from Denmark and the books I had published there, paid me, not the other way around. That, in itself, was seen as a sort of hallmark of quality, classifying the individual books as good and worth while for the reader, not "mere pulp fiction".
To publish something like this - which I did - exhibits just as much "vanity" as publishing something with a so-called "vanity publisher" like e.g. "AuthorHouse". I may prefer the order of a main stream publisher, but that's all the difference of these publishers is to me.
Published with LULU
It has been said that the difference of publishing with "Vanity Publishers" or start self-publishing as I did with LULU and SAXO is that one keeps one's rights to the works: The copyright. I'm not sure that goes for all self-publishing companies, but one do keep the control of the book in other ways. However, that also means that one has to do all the PR work oneself which isn't as easy as one might wish for. However, when I shall publish my next book - and that's what I'm planning to do some months from now - I shall think carefully of the choices I see now: Self-publishing with e.g. KDP, LULU or SAXO? Or should I venture into the swamp of the so-called "Vanity publishing" once more?
I've read the warnings of the diligent and very, very knowledgeable Victoria Strauss on her "Writer Beware"-blog, and it was made clear to me that "Vanity presses" and the like are dangerous dancing partners. Many/Most (???) of them only focus on their chances of bleeding the author and forget all obligations toward him or her. In my opinion that doesn't mean that we should give up on them here and now. Knowing what they do and how they are there must be a way to keep the steering wheel and co-operate with them for those who find all other ways to publish overwhelming. What is needed is a sort of acceptable "Deal with the Devil". Had it been easier to find good agents and reputable mainstream publishers I would never have thought of "making deals with the Devil", but the situation being what it is I'm rethinking our possibilities as writers.
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