Ron Charles, editor of The Washington Post’s Book World, asked Roger Sutton, editor in chief of Horn Book magazine, about reviewing self-published books.

Charles asked, “What do you say to the indie writer who reminds you that Walt Whitman was self-published?”

“You are not Walt Whitman,” Sutton said. “The 21st century is different in so many ways from the 19th that the comparison is meaningless. No one is forbidding you from self-publishing, but neither is anyone required to pay attention.”

Charles reviewed Sutton’s recently expressed concerns over the glut of self-published books vying for place in our hands. Are there bound to be some great books out there? Yes, but there are too many bad one that look like it from a professional reviewer’s outpost. The school of the self-published will only grow, and perhaps a new system of reviewing and judging will be organized to help readers find good books. Sutton isn’t convinced it will matter. “People are more interested in writing self-published books than in reading them.”

Ouch.