A plague on iUniverse's houses. To include the self-published, or not to include? That is the question. I'm trying to be as all-encompassing as possible, obviously--what good is looking at the diffusion of literature if I don't include enough literature to get a representative sample?--but if I start trying to plow through all the Phantom fanfiction on the web, I'll drown. Literally. In reams of electronic letters that will come out of the screen and choke my nose and throat. On the one hand, self-published volumes are really only fanfiction that someone had a few dollars to put in shoddily bound format; but on the other hand, many of the works we consider from the Gothic era were published by vanity presses. Some of these self-published novels are popular enough to have made it onto Amazon; who am I to say they aren't real literature?

I think, for completeness' sake, I'll include them. After all, everybody's novel is amateur at some point. I wish I could include all the fanfiction out there, too, but I can't write a very effective dissertation if my eyes are bleeding from strain... not to mention the homicide that might occur after the fiftieth really bad one. My powers of mockery can only stretch so far before I snap.

Of course, this means I now have to troll Lulu and iUniverse for material. As if I didn't have enough going on yet.