There have been two recent events that contribute to this blog post.
One of the events, which becomes two events if you slice it right, is the creation of a “self-publishing branch” by two professional publishers, Harlequin and Thomas Nelson. These events have caused a lot of drama (warning: epic thread is epic, and massive timesink of external linking). To sum: RWA, MWA, and SFWA have dropped both publishers from their lists of acceptable publishing credits. The well-respected publishing watchdog Writer Beware has relatively scathing posts about these two moves. WB is definitely not an alarmist blog, and is very careful about the language used concerning publishers, due to living under persistent threat of lawsuit. So if WB calls you out in unequivocal language, son, you done fucked up.
The other is that I rediscovered this article. Which is a lot less to read than the above.
If you ever hit up any of these “self-publishing” sites for testimonials (more on the scare quotes later) you’ll see hearts like cups filled with effervescence, spilling over in their joy of having Their Story in book form, surrounded by stock photos of Not The Actual Author Because They Can’t Smile Quite As Disarmingly As This Soft-Focused Photo Of A Woman Done In Pastels.
These publishers, in their efforts to entice you, will engage in a persuasive speech of the downtrodden author, kept down by “the man” as embodied by traditional publishing, mocked openly by the gatekeepers who presume to call themselves literary agents, the verysame agents who go on to demand a sizable portion of your hard-won advance for doing something so simple as passing your manuscript to an editor. Their arguments are propped up by strawmen at best, and like all modern persuasive speeches, they’re going to net only Kool-Aid drinkers and the uninformed. The rest of us know better.
But I’m not really interested in persuading the Kool-Aid drinkers to change their ways. I’ve said it before, I’m saying it again, and I’ll keep saying it: I’m selfish, my time is valuable, and I’m not going to waste it. If anyone should be enticed by dreamily-painted arguments instead of numbers and fact, then I don’t mind seeing their wallet molested because they feel Night Travels of the Elven Vampire “deserves to be read.”
As far as convincing those who are unaware of this world? There are many other places that can help them far better than I can. WB as listed above, AbsoluteWrite, and the still-useful Snarkives do this and I’m not a fan of doubling work.
Aside: Before I get into what I wanted to discuss, I’ll clarify those scare quotes. Self-publishing and Vanity Publishing are two different things. Self-publishing is where the author owns the ISBN and the product. Vanity publishing is where the author does not. They both require out-of-pocket expenditure to have the final product of a sheaf of paper with a glossy page on either end, both will not likely land in bookstores, and both require authors to bust their asses to get people other than close kith and kin to buy the books. But self-publishing tends not to lie about what it is. Vanity does. Especially on the points I listed.
Aside, continued: Legitimate self-publishing is, in my opinion, pretty awesome. It lets you bind your family history in a book. It lets you collect grandma’s recipes to hand to your kids and their kids. It helps make your niche paper on the parallels of microorganism reproduction and Internet memes accessible to the public. It doesn’t get your book mentioned on Oprah, but it gets your work out to interested audiences. And, you own said book. Not so with Vanity, which targets a different audience (hopeful novelists) with a different goal (you might get discovered this way and become all super-famous and shit).
Anywhoozle.
For those who didn’t want to read the article I linked (that’s okay, it’s six pages for a small point) I’ll summarize it here, sloppily: people with self-control do better in life. For those of you who did read the article (good job): yes, a lot more than that happened in the article, but that’s all I care about, and I’d be very happy if you went along with me on that one point, thanks.
The Marshmallow Experiment. You set a marshmallow in front of a child. Tell them if they don’t eat it for fifteen minutes, then they get a second marshmallow. Some children are able to resist. Others are not. The children who said no to the marshmallow in favor of two marshmallows have, across the board, done better in life, because they were able to weigh short-term gain and long-term gain.
You see where I’m going with this.
Vanity presses are the now-marshmallow. It’s the one sitting on your desk, teasing you. Give in and you’ll have that book in your hands tomorrow! Professional, traditional publishing is the later-marshmallow. Why wasn’t your novel published? Well, because it sucks and you need to work on that. Maybe your characters are flat. Maybe your prose is dead on the page. Maybe your story isn’t compelling. You’re trying to sell your book to people who love books, both pre- and post-publication. The masses who pick up DaVinci Code are not your audience. The people who just “pop in to have a quick look” and walk out with an armful of new titles because omg I didn’t know he’d just released a new book, and I’ve heard a lot about this series I should check it out, and I totally love her medical mysteries and she blurbed this other author’s medical mystery so I want to read that, and… you get the idea. This is your audience. And these people? They’ve read a lot. A lot. They’re going to be harder to convince of how awesome your book is.
Writing is hard. Your first draft needs work. Your first novel isn’t likely to get published (but zomg it took a year to write!). But if you work at your craft with your eye on the distant prize of being a Professional Author instead of just a hobbyist and ignore the temptation of just having a book in your hands with your name on it, you’re going to be a fair sight better off.
This is the metacognition part. Think about how you think about publishing. Do you think being published is a human right, alongside clean water and a Louis Vuitton bag? Well, it’s not. Never was. It is the result of hard work, diligence, and a creative streak, and in this like all things the world owes you nothing. If the temptation of Vanity presses prove overwhelming, play metacognative tricks. Ignore the low-hanging fruit which is rotted at the core. Pretend it doesn’t exist. Play with your stories, worlds, characters. Read more. Go to conventions. Blog. When a Vanity press creeps into your periphery, turn your head and focus.
And if you honestly hate working at the craft of writing, find something better to do. Painting, interior design, blacksmithing, I don’t care. If you really want to write stories but don’t want to deal with serious publication, I suggest posting online and pursuing fanfiction. Scratches the writing itch, you get to share your work, and there’s no cost out of pocket. Just don’t waste your time doing something for the wrong reasons that makes you unhappy. You time is as precious as mine is.
Say no to the Now Marshmallow. Find your Later Marshmallow and go get it.
