Indulging oneself? And why not? By Dennis Hamley
I suppose you could say that what I'm going to write about is vanity publishing gone mad. But there is reason behind it. Two issues set this latest crazed ambition going. The first is the ubiquity of artists' limited edition prints. The urge to possess a lovely giclee print not far off original with a number to prove it and so certainly pretty exclusive, especially if it's signed just for you, makes the limited edition print a worthwhile proposition for painters. Giclee prints on sale! The second is something I first heard about when the publishing director of a major but noticeably enterprising (in a good way) publisher spoke to Writers in Oxford about three years ago now and said what they were doing to come to terms with ebooks. First, to test the market, they took some of their genre novels and put them up as ebooks for silly prices. They were amazed at the take up so they put the prices up and were still amazed. Eventually they decided that the traditional...