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First off, the question stated here is highly biased. "Legitimate" being used in place of "traditional" gives a sense that those authors not using one of the top 5 publishing companies or one of the thousands of small press publishers is not publishing "legitimately" and that is not at all true. The question is not about self-publishing or legitimate publishing, but publishing either independently or traditionally.

That said, self-publishing is also an iffy term, since many critics will say those who go through a company offering printing and distribution services are not self-published, but subsidy published. I use the term indie published for all those not signing a contract with a publisher who takes the manuscripts and holds control over them with a contract. If you retain all rights to your book, you are indie published.

Granted there is value to being able to say you're contracted to one of the big name publishers. It gives immediate credence, right or not, that your work is among the best. That's not always true. Who hasn't read a big-name book that had less quality than it should have? In fact, many of the big company published books coming out now are pretty iffy quality both in writing style and in editing. Big name authors write plenty of inadequate books that still get out through big name companies only because of the name.

I've read a lot of small press published books, as well. This is still considered traditional publishing because they are under contract and pay nothing to have their books put out there for sale. However, the editing and writing quality of these books sometimes read like third grade writing level and are edited just as badly. Where is the value in this? Why sign your rights over to a traditional company with paid editors when you end up with average quality (or lower)? In addition, you have little to no control over your book cover with traditional publishers and I've talked with many, many authors who were very unhappy with their covers that gave the wrong impression of their books or were poor artistic quality. They have also mentioned romantic books being marketed as "hot" when they aren't, simply because publishers can sell them more easily. The author, once that contract is signed, can do nothing about it. Many of these companies end up going out of business, taking the books off the sale shelves.

Getting your work in with a big name company is a long shot, especially with most of them having financial difficulties. They

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