Does it matter if a book is self-published or through a publisher?

Recently I have come across three publishers ecw press, gale cengage learning and Andrews McMeel who have published various books that have factual errors, grammar errors or spelling mistakes.

So does it matter if your book is self-published or through a publisher for it to be of quality?

 

Well, a lot of bookshops don't like to stock print on demand books, so you may have difficulties getting exposure.

 

The value of the content does not matter. But what potential readers think does.

 

Does it matter? To the author, yeah. To the reader, maybe not so much.

To the author, having a book published by an established publishing house confers upon his work an air of legitimacy. And an author backed by a publishing house has it easier. Book signings and book launches and other events are arranged by the company. And publishing houses usually work with newspapers so if you are a traditionally published author, your book has a better chance of getting into the newspapers.

To the reader... I think as long as the story is interesting, the reader will like it. For example, in China, web novels are very very popular. None of them are traditionally published. And yet, as far as I know, the bestselling web novelists are able to make a decent living from their works.