It feels like over time the often heard phrase of “I want to get published” has morphed into “I am publishing”. With the many changes in the publishing world, book publishing has changed so dramatically that it is no longer necessary to find an agent and pitch a book. Self-publishing opportunities are everywhere and as close as your fingertips, i.e. Amazon. This interesting topic came from The Scholarly Kitchen in their article, “What Is “Publishing” if Even a Library Can Do It?”
However, along with the process changes, the approach or reputation of self-publishing has also changed. While it has not reached the echelons of HarperCollins, self-publishing provides the author control of the entire process.
In the world of academia, self-publishing is even less accepted, though on the rise. Academics inhabit a parallel publishing ecosystem: a constellation of university presses and journals that publish slowly, offer few economic returns, and subject all work to painstaking peer review. Scholars and publishing experts in the U.S. and Britain say self-publishing by academics remains a rarity.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
