Ever get the feeling that something might be fishy?

Amanda Hocking is supposed to be the girl who made it big by self publishing on Amazon. You can see here she’s worth quite a bit.

Maybe she is. I don’t know, and I’m not trying to play down anyone’s success. I certainly hope she has made it big all on her own because that means there’s hope for all of us, but if you click the image above you’ll see her book is ranked pretty low…very low, and although she has 800 some odd ratings, there are no reviews on her book. Isn’t that a little weird?

James Crouch is another one of these “self made” individuals, and there’s no doubt his writing is amazing, but he’s not really self published. He has an agent and is published through Thomas and Mercer, which is Amazon’s actual publishing branch.

Yes, their books appear to be self published, but I have to call into question just what is going on. If anyone has any information to clear this up, I’d certainly like to see it.

I actually did some more research in the middle of writing this, and see that Hocking is published by Dynamite Entertainment. She’s also published by St. Martin’s press. This means that crap that she’d be losing money if she accepted a traditional publishing contract is fake.

I’m really sick of this kind of misinformation. I take it to heart, obviously, because I am self published and indie published, and people out there make it seem like these other big shots are, too, and everyone falls on their knees in amazement, but the stories about these people are as fictional as their novels. How about we all just be honest, huh?

Oh, and don’t get me started on J.K. By her own admission she was never living in her car, and no publisher will ever read a book handwritten on napkins–not taking away from her well-deserved success, I’m just pointing out that the stories that people believe are outrageous.

I bring this up because self publishing continues to get a bad rap, and I get it; all too often, a self published title isn’t properly edited, but then again, just as often, the mainstream titles aren’t properly edited either. You can see that in Lee Child’s writing.

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