Internet search results

Thanks for the information and I suspected it has been brought up by someone at sometime. I looked through the forum posts but didn't spot it in the time I had to search. Our review group and profile settings aren't as far as I know open to the internet. I didn't even see any option on our profile page where you could open it to the internet. I know it's there for publishing content.

It all depends on your aims. If you're looking forward to being published by traditional publishers, then it might a problem. If you're self-publishing, which is a route followed by many in TNBW community, then you don't care about dealbreakers. If you've already self-published anything, those works turn automatically ineligible. However, I've read of self-published ebooks whose rights are afterwards purchased by any of the infamous big 5 who then publish the hard copy. If they smell money, believe me, they're gonna try to buy your rights no matter what.

Prob is, they've lost they nose. There are tonnes of stories about bestsellers that were rejected not once but several times. Harry Potter tops the list, but take Carlos Ruiz Zafón's "The Shadow of the Wind". Back in 2002, he participated in a contest sponsored by a Spanish publishing house and ended second. The first prize was the publication contract awarded to Angeles Caso's "A Long Silence". Zafón was already a YA published writer and "The Shadow of the Wind" was his first novel targeting a more mature audience.

One of the judges recommended to publish Zafon's novel too, not as part of the contests but under a separate negotiation. At first, nobody at the publishing house cared, but finally Zafón's novel was published. Few books were published at first though--something around 1000--and distribution was poor because nobody at the publishing house believe it in, despite Zafon being a published author and despite he ended second. My goodness, it was not like he had ended in the last place! But no, the publishers didn't believe in him.

As of today, "The Shadow of the Wind" is a bestseller that has sold over 10 million copies alone. The author turned it into a three-book series that has sold over 20 million copies. The novel that won the prize was published but it never, ever, represented the success Zafón's novel represented. Why didn't Zafón's story won the first prize? In the end, it got published just by chance.

The link posted by njc takes you to a very interesting article about publishing houses nowadays. I know self-publishing doesn't seem to be the route to becoming a best-selling author, but the big 5 don't seem either. The actual route is writing a best-seller. The readers--as it happened to Harry Potter and The Shadow of the Wind--will, ultimately, be the ones discovering a best seller.

Kiss

Gacela

Jack, it you've already sold "thousands" of copies of your books, you can consider yourself a successful author. Don't be so tough with yourself. I'm on the hundreds level and I'm very happy. Of course, I'm far, far away from bestselling. Maybe farther than Star Wars's galaxy, it doesn't prevents me from feeling happy with my limited success.

Art, like any other profession, is complex. For each Leonardo or Michael Angelo, there are millions of painters who barely make a living not to say those who border starvation. Art galleries are a world as crappy and crocked as the Publishing World, and few are the painters who climb the steps of Elysium. However, there are thousand, if not millions, of painters who make a living selling their works in bazaars, some of them true undiscovered masterpieces.

Many lofty painters were not recognised in their times, but centuries after being dead, which further supports that it's the public -- and sometimes time --the one who tags an artworks as a masterpiece.

Kiss,

Gacela-