I recently ran across this thread at SFReader.com. In it, Edward Knight literarlly begs for speculative fiction readers to buy his new anthology Unparalleled Journeys II. By doing so, he had just guaranteed that I, for one, won’t be reading.

There is a definite stigma in our industry against publishers who solicit authors to buy their own work or the work of authors they know personally. This marketing ploy has be employed (effectively, unfortunately) by vanity publisher PublishAmerica, who, as you can see from the link I’ve provided, has acquired a reputation as a scam publisher.

Why does this stigma exist? Well, it boils down to what kind of services publishers provide. In these days of easy Print On Demand publishing, where authors can literally have their books in their hands without any outside help within a week, a publishing house has to add value in order to remain pertinent. In theory, that value comes in the form of selling your books. By going through a publishing house, an author should be able to sell more books than if they had self-published (or else what’s the point?).

Now, an author can easily sell to their friends, and doesn’t have much difficult selling in the tight knit speculative fiction community. So where does that leave the publisher? Well, responsible publishers try to sell to the general public, either on much trafficked websites or in bookstores, and some do so very successfully. Those who don’t berate potential authors for not promoting or buying books they have no interest in.

It’s a bad sign that Journey Books Publishing feels that they have to beg for readers. I wish Edward Knight all the luck in the world, but I, for one, will not be reading.