The Guardian has an interesting column in its book section about the lack of respect for writers who publish their work themselves or through independent publishers.  It's a short but interesting read, with several good points, including the pointed question "Can you imagine any serious film reviewer refusing to watch anything other than the major Hollywood blockbusters?"

David Barnett also uses the indie music and film scenes to showcase the state of the situation:

Without indie music, there would be no Smiths, no Happy Mondays, no Kylie, even (she was on Stock, Aitken and Waterman's own indie label, PWL). Without indie cinema, there would be no Reservoir Dogs, no Ghost World, no Night of the Living Dead. Without indie publishing there would be no ... who? Who are the big indie writers, those who refuse to compromise by not allowing The Man to dictate what and how they should write, and earn massive respect because of it?

Obviously, for those of us who follow the independent presses and the writers found there, we could easily point out people we'd consider to be "big writers," but the point is still valid.  Certainly a Brian Evenson is not known at the level of Reservoir Dogs, and Ander Monson doesn't have half the name recognition of a movie like Ghost World, despite having three prize-winning debuts in three different genres with three great small presses. 

It's an interesting article, if a depressing one.  The Guardian pins a lot of the blame for the situation on the reviewers, and I don't think Barnett is completely off base there.  It's one of the reasons we do book and literary magazine reviews at NewPages, focused mostly on independent and small presses or smaller writers at the big houses who are either still emerging or work in fields that get less press (short stories, poetry, translations).  It's the same reason sites like The Short Review are so important.  By virtue of only reviewing short story collections, they guarantee that they'll also cover a lot of independent press publications.  Rain Taxi does a lot of this work as well, as does Bookslut.  More than anything else, these are the reasons that these publications have become indispensable resources to my own reading, while the big print review sections continue to wan in both size and importance.