Garrison Keillor...

disses self-publishing here. "...if you want to write a book, you just write it, send it to Lulu.com or BookSurge at Amazon or PubIt or ExLibris and you've got yourself an e-book. No problem. And that is the future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75."

Some of us are making more than that. That's really the point. If you write good stuff, it will sell. If you write crap, it won't. I kind of like that concept.

"The upside of self-publishing is that you can write whatever you wish, utter freedom, and that also is the downside. You can write whatever you wish, and everyone in the world can exercise their right to read the first three sentences and delete the rest."

Right, and if it's good, they can exercise their right to spend 99 cents and buy my books. Pretty cool, huh?

"But in the New Era, writers will be self-anointed. No passing of the torch. Just sit down and write the book....And editors will vanish."

Um, why, exactly? Is there some sort of law I'm not aware of that editors all must work for publishers?

"Self-publishing will destroy the aura of martyrdom that writers have enjoyed for centuries. Tortured geniuses, rejected by publishers, etc., etc. If you publish yourself, this doesn't work anymore, alas."

I'm not sure those of who write genre fiction ever even got the respect of being thought of as tortured geniuses (romance novelists are typically presumed to be sexually frustrated housewives, which doesn't have quite the same ring to it), so I'm happy enough to pass on that:-).