I’ve seen some real whoppers come out of the Publisher’s Clearing House, and lately, have resorted to treating book-buying as a box of chocolates no matter where the material comes from. You just never know what you’re going to get anymore…

But I have bought stuff off of POD sites. I am always really careful to vet it as much as possible first – seek a sample, etc. For the most part, in the long run I think these sites will enhance, not detract from, the overall publishing market.

But it’s not really new, just a new format. Geneological libraries and society archives are full of such stuff, done years ago by someone on a mimeograph, spiral bound, etc. I always check the local history or Geneology room in whatever library I am working in for such shelving gems, just in case. Often – especially in smaller libraries – they aren’t very well catalogued.

POD sites are just blurring the line between traditional publishing, Blogging, websites, etc. I welcome them, even though they don’t get a lot of my money at the moment. As for content, well, I think it has always been caveat emptor.

Dave Powell

I did my own book because I couldn’t find anyone who was willing to do it my way. Publishing, like anything else, has styles and fads, and right now it’s the class/race/gender trinity. Or they may have just felt that there was no market for a book on infantry tactics. Personally I’m looking forward to your book on Ulric Dahlgren, but if I were a publisher I’d think twice about doing it since the market is quite limited. In fact a book like that — high quality, well written, but with a very limited market — is an ideal POD candidate.

The other thing you run into is when you try to publish something on a new subject. The publisher looks and it and sez, hmm, there are no books on this topic, therefore there’s no market. He’d like you to do yet another one on proven subjects like Antietam, Gettysburg, or Abe Lincoln.

As far as peer review goes, not everyone does it and there have been a number of scandals lately about fraudulent and/or plagiarized work in both academic and mainstream press.

So…everything has to be evaluated on its own merits. As an aside I’ve found some very good info in self-published genealogical works.

A slightly different take, related to Caswain’s observation. As a publisher, author, editor, and publishing consultant, let me share a few things that roll around in my head every so often.

First, there are at least (best guesstimate) 1,000,000 manuscripts that remain unpublished, year in and year out. I think the number is probably double that. (I evaluated a business proposition a few years ago in an effort to monetize that extra-Amazon market.)

Second, agents and acquisitions editors are gatekeepers. As the publishing world consolidates, there are fewer publishing channels in the traditional sense. These gatekeepers determine what the vast majority of the people CAN read, and WILL read. Think about that for a few moments.

I know for a fact that somewhere, someone will find something of interest in nearly every manuscript. But if it remains unpublished, no one can read it.

There are several million available (and not so readily available) books out there. The universe of written but unpublished manuscripts (in every genre) may well equal or approach that former figure. You will never hear of them, or read them–or have the opportunity to do so–if agents and major presses (largely in NYC area) say, “Sorry one time to many.” Disgusted authors throw it on a shelf and move one. Sad.

So I love POD for that reason. PODs, however, are nearly impossible to sell into stores or distribution, and I can tell the quality difference immediately (it is toner ON paper, not ink IN the paper), so you can feel it with your fingertips.

best

–tps

Amen, Teej. Good old Charlie Bates has really worked over both my eyesight and my dictionary, and his penmanship’s actually pretty good.

Short of time travel, we are all like the proverbial blind men feeing the elephant to some degree. Some will gather more information than others, for sure. And still others are able to relate what they know better. But none can say the subject is completely detailed without some doubt.

I do worry that the “publish or die” standards within academia has served to water down the offerings. I once remarked to my graduate professor, “to throw an unpublished Confederate memoir into a room of my peers would be equivalent to tossing a raw piece of meat in the alligator pit.”

A well researched offering should stand on its own merit, particularly if the prose is delivered with resonance. Shouldn’t be a concern where or by whom it was published.

Sorry, Eric, no way would I accept someone else’s transcription if I had access to the originals or copies of the originals. One thing I’ve learned is that you have to familiarize yourself with a person’s writing style. This is particularly true when you’re having difficulty making out a word that can change the meaning of a whole sentence if not the whole letter. It becomes even more important when dealing with letters written in another century with it’s own brand of shorthand and slang.

Teej

Eric,

I just wanted to mention that there’s a very interesting book, Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman, devoted to recounting a multitude of instances where transcription was less than accurate, either intentionally or not.

~Bridget

Perhaps, but that begs the question of whether these writers SHOULD have publishing deals. In other words, is their work worthy of publication?

Without some controls, it seems to me that there’s a lot of bad work being published that shouldn’t.

Eric