Reading only indie fiction for a week | traditional vs. self-published books

I recently went down a rabbit hole about traditional vs self-published books and where books come from, which left me wondering...could tell if a book was self-published? could the more niche stories and topics of indie books make me like them more?
📚 Books mentioned:
The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang ( / the-sword-of-kaigen )
The Biographies of Ordinary People Vol.I by Nicole Dieker ( / the-biographies-of-ord... )

[@DMSonntagBooksNHooks]

I just stumbled across your channel looking for indie booktubers like myself. I feel so weird and vain recommending myself, but that's kinda how indies have to market to get our books seen. So I would love it if you read my novel "The Lightning Bride." ☺

[@oliviainthecity]

Not weird or vain at all, thank you for letting me know! I would love to read it, added it to my TBR! Congrats on the book and getting it out there :)

[@ulengrau6357]

I'll admit I mostly read litfic when it comes to fiction. And my feeling is that there has always been some pretty bad fiction published under this so-called "literary" genre, once it became really easy to print books. I used to think, rather naively, that if something was published in The New Yorker or if it was nominated for this prize or that, it meant that it was Good (capital G). And then some years ago I read "Cat Person" in the NYer, and then "Cat Person and Other Stories" was published by a major publishing house. And the whole veil or curtain (like Wizard of Oz style) was lifted.
Now, I won't go looking for self-published litfic, because yes, most of it tends to be bad or it's just upmarket fiction posing as literary fiction (e.g. it doesn't deal with matters in a complex way, but more in a trauma-porn or cozy way), but I also no longer assume that a trad published book is automatically superior. At the end of the day, trad publishers are after money, and editors and agents have to constantly fight to get *actually good* literary fiction into the schedule because, well, in this era of "most people have an 8th grade level reading comprehension", difficult books don't sell. Honestly, this may be why I read so much transnational literature. There's less focus on "oh I hope my book gets turned into a movie" and more focus on the book as the definitive medium.
Btw, if you want to take a deeper dive into the litfic side of this, check out how the MFA kinda ruined trad publishing in the US, and, in a way, also self-publishing for "serious" litfic writers. If this was reddit I'd provide some context (I'm a writer), but not on YT lol, too embarrassed 😅

[@oliviainthecity]

wow this is incredible, i just went though a deep rabbit hole about Cat Person and MFA books lol. I think you really captured it perfectly in the incentives, it unfortunately comes down to what sells or what traditional publishers think will sell, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Also I haven't looked into transnational literature before, but that sounds really interesting, I'd love to read more there! Also thanks for the really thoughtful comment, I always learn something interesting from you!