crowdfunding | Self-Publishing Poll

ysabetwordsmith pointed out this poll on self-publishing, which I visited briefly. After reading a handful of the comments, I was struck by their violence: there's a lot of emotion there in the people denouncing the practice of self-publishing.

ysabetwordsmith said about that: "Any instance of extreme hostility raises the question of why people are being so violent about it."

I think that's a good question. Why do you think some of the people opposed to self-publishing are so hostile about it?

Edit: Please note, I'm not really interested in debating the profitability of the publishing industry. What I'm trying to understand, primarily, is why there's so much vitriol leveled by writers and readers at self-published authors (as in one of the commenters who said of self-published authors that they can "call themselves authors" but they never will be real ones). This kind of extreme behavior strikes me a strange. Particular coming from writers to other writers. And readers—that makes no sense at all. If they don't want to read self-published work, they can just... not read it. Why the anger?

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I think

jenny_evergreen hits the nail on the head.

It's "cheating."

Instead of going through the confusion, humble pleas to established authors for contacts, search for agents, the Dreaded Slush Pile, multiple rejections, etc., that we believe traditional publishing involves (I am not saying trad publishing necessarily DOES involve these things, just that we've all been indoctrinated into believing it does), the self-published person just... puts his or her work out there and asks for money for it.

Mind you, it's not so easy for the self-published person as that, either. But that's the story, and that's cheating.

ozarque has astutely observed that "Most fights are about who's in charge."

If a writer humbly submits their manuscript to other people, they're putting those people in charge. The author is always begging for favors -- read this, accept this, buy this, stamp me as Worthy -- unless they become so wildly popular that the scales tip. This power dynamic is what encourages so many publishers to treat writers badly: they know that most of those writers will take it, because they have accepted the system.

A writer who walks away from that table and self-publishes is telling them, "You're not in charge. *I* am in charge, and this book will sink or swim on my hard work and its own efforts. And after I have paid for its manufacture, I will be pocketing the profits myself. Thank you and good-bye." Well, nobody likes to be told that they're not important, they're not needed, their opinions are irrelevant, and they are not welcome. A writer who self-publishes is sort of firing the publishing industry and saying he or she can do better going it alone. That's a glove in the face.

Most of the time, self-publishing doesn't yield very good results, because almost all of it is done by people who don't know what they're doing. The publishers could actually relax about that; it helps their cause by producing spectactularly awful books. But to maintain their bottleneck, they must attack the alternatives, and especially anything that might actually be successful. It's one reason they change their tune when a self-published book becomes wildly successful; they run to the author and say, "Oh, we'll let you be in our club now," and almost all self-published authors will take that bait. Then it's like, that was an accident, that book should never have been self-published because it was really good enough to be a real book all along.

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One of the things I loved about running a magazine was that I could treat writers the way I wanted editors to treat me. I was pretty sure -- not positive -- that it would work.

It was enormously popular. Many of my regular writers were people I bought from on their second or third attempt, because I'd give targeting information to anyone who seemed "close" to publishable. I actively promoted the perk of having a pleasant work environment. I did have some writers tell me to bug off early in the game because I expected them to write clean copy, on time, on length, with proper footnotes if they were quoting facts. (Those are not widely required in Pagan periodicals.) But once I had time to build up a network of writers who knew me, it was great.

That's one of the things that has me quietly considering the idea of publishing, someday, if I ever have the money for it. I could once again make my little corner of the industry a nice place to work. Sure, some writers are whiny jerks, but there are plenty of personable professionals out there; I don't anticipate any trouble finding them if I need to again.

Precisely! It's sad when they forget that's part of the job. I have editor friends and publisher friends and writer friends and artist friends. It takes a team to make a great book, and the better the party in your office, the better the book is likely to be in the end. If you're not having fun, why in the world are you doing this? There are saner places to get rich.

/houseboatonstyx here/

I haven't seen publishers commenting on this, but what you say fits the comments I've seen from many writers, most of them wannabees (well, of course most writers ARE wannabees).

One lady, who teaches writing in some sort of community college sort of project in UK, was being coaxed by beta-readers to web her rejected novel. She refused, saying that if no professional wanted to publish it, it must be so bad as to be embarrassing. She had some structured sort of personal requirement of wanting at least some compliments from some agents or publishers before she would consider the book non-embarrassing. As though some sort of imprimature from some super race were required.

A US lady who had one or two books published (loved by a small audience) seemed to feel the same way about her work: it didn't sell well, so it must not be any good.

Others attacked the idea of self-publishing because 'they can call themselves authors'. Apparently this would destroy some standard (of approval by 'professionals') which the wannabees hope to reach someday.

I finally realized that my definition of "professional" is different than most people's definition seems to be. It came about when I got tired of diddling around with writer's organizations that would only let you in if you had X qualifications from their approved markets. I realized that I was wasting time trying to get the approval of people whose rules I thought were stupid.

My definition of professional:
1) You are competent and reliable in your work, delivering a usable/enjoyable product on time and on length; you think of yourself as a pro and conduct yourself accordingly.
2) People pay you for your work.

I have noticed that a great many people who fit #2 do not seem capable of #1. I was shocked, appalled, and horrified by my very first editing experience, which involved working with Big Name Pros. Once I was able to sort out people for whom #1 was also a priority, things went much better.

I'm a professional writer because I do the work and people pay me for it. If other people don't consider that relevant, that's their problem. You want to impress me with my editor hat on? Flash me your manners, not your credits. You'll stand out like an oak tree on a prairie.

Besides, if they would treat people decently, then people wouldn't be trying to flee in droves. If you look at small presses (or certain women's birthing clinics) they have a much nicer atmosphere because some of them are started by people who count a congenial workplace among their goals. They've had bad experiences with places that treated them like garbage, and they don't want to do that to anyone else ... and they're betting that other folks will be attracted to that model.

Self-Publishing Poll

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