if publishing became accessible to all regardless

[cacian]

*publishment access all areas*
in other words if we were able to publish everything we wrote, under general standard guidance of course, would our attitude to writing change?
if so how?

[BioHestia]

I feel as though if just anyone could publish then we would be less open to giving advice. It would mean we were all competing, not sharing. Or worse, it could become about quanity over quality. I'm an average writer, or so I like to believe (don't you dare tell me I'm an awful writer! Just kidding, I'm open to criticism), and I love giving and receiving suggestions on how to improve. It would also take away the feeling of being special/great to those who truly deserve to have their works published. Sort of like how giving everyone a trophy for competing makes that trophy less special than if the best were the only one(s) who received it. I hope I made sense. I'll have to ponder this later and correct myself if anyone would be kind enough to point out flaws in my opinion.

[cacian]

I feel as though if just anyone could publish then we would be less open to giving advice. It would mean we were all competing, not sharing. Or worse, it could become about quanity over quality. I'm an average writer, or so I like to believe (don't you dare tell me I'm an awful writer! Just kidding, I'm open to criticism), and I love giving and receiving suggestions on how to improve. It would also take away the feeling of being special/great to those who truly deserve to have their works published. Sort of like how giving everyone a trophy for competing makes that trophy less special than if the best were the only one(s) who received it. I hope I made sense. I'll have to ponder this later and correct myself if anyone would be kind enough to point out flaws in my opinion.

publishing is an establishment that favours some works over others. it means that the public does not get to chose. punishing in a way is controlling of what people buy/read and so on.
I think if publishing was made available to all then the public gets to have the last word because they will decide which to like and which they don't.
every writer will have a chance to be looked then read or not.

[Whosis]

Self-publishing is always an option to publish anything, and some self-published books do well.

[stlukesguild]

Ummm... the Internet?

[PeterL]

WHois is right. Self=-publishing is a viable alternative now. It won't make the kind of money that a publishing can advertise a book into, but some of the few self-published books hae sold significant numbers and made enough money to pay attention to. Amazon picks up some of the good ones, and that leads to real sales. A friend of mine has made some money from her book.

But that only lightly touches on your opening post.

I think that publishing everything would result in much less being published, because most of what is written is not good.