My second forage into the world of self-publication was met with a much more sophisticated response. True, publishers were no more approachable than they ever were, although they had increased dramatically in numbers by, what I thought, were in the thousands; but the self-publishing industry also appeared to be much more saturated but with more offers to help of a kind that seemed to be more…. professional? Dare I say. Changed – yes. Improved? Who can tell?

But I can say that the services they offer – and I think they provide – is a product that is more professionally put together and therefore attractive to us poor, foolish, would-be authors as a consequence of improvements, or developments, in internet products. Oh well, here we go again…. gullibly falling for the commercial offerings of the sap-sucking, toadies of the underbelly of world-wide web society that feeds off our mental disability to understand and control the ethernet products around us.

This time, I kept closer to home, because I could. There are a few companies, in the Vancouver area, that really seemed to be better equipped to offer, as they proposed, an all-round cadre of services that could result in a more commercially presentable product. They still fell short of marketing, but one of them at least went as far as I could expect.

It is hard to expect a web based service to offer one a professional service using ‘experts’ and ‘experienced’ people to help. The fact is, most of the services are based on whatever the internet offers in terms of support initiatives – and not what the individual can do. In other words, we have to rely on our ‘professional’ to know what is out there in the ethernet to help us because sure as hell they don’t know. But, that is the situation, whether we like it or not. No one knows everything any more. The limit of their knowledge is what they are aware of could help – but not necessarily accomplish.

Take one of my ‘project managers’ with a self-publishing company. If asked about an issue that requires an intuitive response to a literary query, I am told to ‘go look elsewhere’. Their knowledge is hampered by the limits of what they have been told. No further help possible!! The fact is, they could as well be involved in any other industry that relies on the resources of the internet, because that is all they know. In other words, forget the subject matter, think about the ethernet – it can do wonders!