Self-Publishers Get Little Respect

I was browsing through the forums at Lulu, and I came across a post about how self-publishers (known there as "indie publishers") get little or no respect. The post pointed to an article in the Huffington Post that talked about the 4 reasons why self-publishers get hardly any respect. I had heard about that, and I heard about how traditional publishers boast about how they look down on those of us who do our own publishing. Well, we all have to start somewhere. Though I know my books are not "top publisher" quality, as I do more in the way of graphic novels than with regular novels. Two of the main reasons mentioned in the article pointed to the fact that most self-publishers do not hire professional editors to look over their work. And for the most part, that is true. I don't have a "professional" editor, but I do have a couple of extra sets of good eyes, my supervisor for example, is an expert in English. She usually lets me know if I am using the wrong grammar or punctuation. But I can attest to that about many self-publishers not being taken seriously because of a lack of basic grammar skills. Nothing annoys me more in reading than to see someone using the word "their" when they should be using "they're". For example writing a sentence that looks like this: "The boys got into they're care and went for a ride", when it should look like this: "The boys got into their car and went for a ride." I mean really!? Don't people remember in grade school being taught that "they're" is an abbreviation of "they are". So does that make sense "the boys got into 'they are' car"?? That was one of the first things I learned in first grade! "Their" denotes possession by more than one person. "They're" is an abbreviation of "they are". Got it now?? And another one: "There", which is to show where something is at. That's another one that annoys me. I see people using that too in place of "their" or even "they're". One way to tell how to use "there" properly is to remember that the word "here" is within "there". Both are to point out where a person or object is at. You say "Minnie is standing right over there." Not "Minnie is standing right over their." Which is what I sometimes see. It makes me want to just skim past a sentence, it's so annoying. I notice a lot of people from the UK and Australia are big in making those mistakes. And they call us here in the USA dumb. LOL!

Speaking of which, I noticed NewZealandKiwi has been trying (under 2 different aliases) to get my attention still. I blocked him back on Sunday, and once I block someone I pay no more attention to them. I don't visit their channels, and when they write me, I just delete their post, unread. I have the distinctive feeling that NewZealandKiwi is that spkenn36 guy (the one I called Kenny) that I encountered back in October of 2009. Remember, I wrote about him in this blog. Well, after we parted company after a 2-day long battle, he PM'd me and said that maybe someday we will meet again and argue about some other meaningless subject on the internet. Well, getting into an argument with me because I hate tigers is about as meaningless as any argument can ever get. So any posts that I even think is from NewZealandKiwi, I just delete them. I don't even open them, I just delete. He tried to post to me again yesterday under another name, I didn't read the post, but the name mentioned something about dark angels, and it was a response to something I wrote on one of his videos, so I just didn't read the comment. I just deleted it. :) He's just wasting his time with me anyway. I hate tigers. I always hated tigers, and I always will. And people like him that bitch at me about it, only make me hate tigers even more. I hate them so much that if I could, I'd take a bazooka and blast every tiger I could ever find in the wild. I love dogs and lemurs. Especially little dogs. I love my Minnie and Vegas.

I was watching the one documentary last night that made me a lemur-lover! Let me tell you, it is an OLD documentary, and I still have it. I recorded it back in 1987. It's an old episode of Nature. I'll tell you, when I recorded that show, I was still a panther-lover. I didn't get to watch it as I recorded it because I remember I was sick that night. I didn't go to school the next day either because I was still sick. So, at one point I was up, and I went into our TV room and I watched the show. Well, I just cannot tell you, I fell instantly in love with lemurs! I mean, who wouldn't fall in love with images like these:

You'd have to be blind, dumb, or just not know true beauty when you see it! Believe me, when I first saw that documentary, it was never my intention to not give panthers a second glance again! It was just a pleasant side-effect! Not only are lemurs cuter than panthers, I think they have much better colors, they are much better athletes (a good inspiration for me), they're better singers, and they're better funny-men! What can panthers do? They hunt, sleep, eat and shit. Nothing more. The most active of all panthers are cheetahs, and they're so damn ugly I don't care how unique they are. So anyone wasting their time arguing with me about the fact that I hate panthers need not bother as long as I have images like these: