[AndrewGYork]

As opposed to the traditional publishing high-school popularity game? I'm partially joking, but traditional publishing is very much a popularity contest. You're free to ignore this, but I don't recommend it.

My personal experience (twelve years of traditional publishing followed by five years of DIY publishing) is that I spend substantially less of my time on publishing/dissemination, have higher impact, and produce higher quality work. You should give it a try!