How Many People in Publishing can Change a Light Bulb?

Q. How many publishers does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Three. One to screw it in, two to hold down the author.

Q. How many production people does it take to change a light bulb?
A. That light bulb was supposed to have been changed last week!

Q. How many copy-editors does it take to change a light bulb?
A. The last time this question was asked, it involved production people. Is the difference intentional? Should one or the other instance be changed? It seems inconsistent.

Q. How many marketing directors does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Is it too late to make this light bulb a neon one instead?

Q. How many proofreaders does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Proofreaders aren’t supposed to change light bulbs. They should just query them.

Q. How many designers does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Why is there … an eggbeater, I think?… sticking out of this light fixture?

Q. How many cover-blurb writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: A VAST AND TEEMING HORDE STRETCHING FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA!!!!

Q. How many IT people does it take to screw in a light bulb.
A: Just one, but the new light bulbs aren’t compatible with the old sockets, so they’ll have to buy a new light fitting or re-wire the entire building.

Q. How many finance department people does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One, but they’re not changing it until someone’s signed the invoice for the new light bulb. And how come we’re going through so many light bulbs anyway?

Q. How many writers does it take to change a light bulb?
A. But why do we have to CHANGE it?

Q. How many mystery writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two, one to screw it almost all the way in and the other to give it a surprising twist at the end.

When Self-Publishing Becomes Vanity Publishing

Writers amongst you may remember that, last autumn, the people behind the publishing website YouWriteOn announced that they would publish, free of charge, 5,000 titles in time for Christmas. You may be interested in learning how things worked out. If you visit Jane Smith’s blog at The Bookseller.com you can do just that.

It’s not a pretty story. In “Should you write on?” Jane makes it clear that in this case there was a fine line between self-publishing and vanity publishing. She reports that some authors now deeply regret ever getting involved in the YouWriteOn scheme. It seems that few writers who signed up for it will sell more than a handful of copies of their respective books; and although it was claimed by the publisher that one title had sold “more than 1,000 copies”, it later emerged that these had been sold direct to the book’s author.

In her follow-up post, “How self-publishing really works“, Jane explains the difference between self-publishing and vanity publishing, which is very informative and any new writer who wants to self-publish their first novel should put this article on the top of their required reading list. It certainly opened my eyes to what really goes on in the world of self-publishing, and it gave me the names of a few companies that it might be best to avoid, or at least approach with caution.

However, read Jane Smith’s articles for yourself and come to your own conclusions. I, for myself, will be adding her blog to my list of must-reads and I will report back on any further items of interest that I find there.