Cozy Up . . . Self-Publishers Now Have a Seat at the Table

I started writing way back when dinosaurs roamed the face of the earth. . . wait a minute. That may be a bit of an exaggeration.

**feverishly flips calendar pages**

Yep. Overstatement. Now then, when I started seriously writing about 10'ish years ago, self-publishing was frowned upon. I'm talking a big bad naughty-naughty kind of frown. As in you're a pariah and you might as well move to Calcutta with all the other low caste wastrels.

Oh, how times have changed.

Recently it was announced that big dog Publishers Weekly no longer cares if you go the traditional route. And their their new launch of BookLife proves it. Both types of books (self-pubbed & traditional) will now be fully integrated into their magazine's regular review pages both online and in print. Why the shift? According to CEO George Slowik, Jr.,

"Booksellers and librarians want to know which self-published books to carry, and publishers and agents want informed, critical reviews in order to solicit authors for publishing deals."

Huh. Apparently miracles do still happen.