A Publishing Home

Publishing was always my goal but felt unattainable for most of my life, or something that only a select few got to do, like winning an award. In a world, where only the best writing is published this may have been an acceptable if disheartening fate to me, but that wasn't the world I was living in. Instead, I was told that I'd have to write a self help book, a cookbook, or a Stephen King like piece of horror, to even be considered for publishing, since the big houses didn't even read literary fiction anymore, my genre. The authors of these 'How to get Published' books would ultimately put the blame on the writer, in a backward attempt to give him/her hope, by saying that if the manuscript was of a high enough quality then eventually it would find a home, or more specifically an agent who'd direct it to its home, or the proper publishing house. So, right off the bat, the book was a child looking for a home, but only the most worthy would ever find it, even though it seemed only the most unworthy were finding homes, an inherent contradiction.

I wanted to believe that somewhere in America there was someone who'd publish my masterpiece that I'd spent a decade working up to, and that I'd pulled my hair out deliberating over for another decade. Surely, "If So Carried by the Wind" was worthy of publication even if it wasn't a book to change the face of publishing forever, a wish of mine, and would one day find a home, but that was looking increasingly difficult. For starters, there was the length which defied even the most hopeful of "How To" books because it wasn't a novel, the only length worth publishing until the ebook era. I didn't really want to make "If So Carried" longer just to get published, especially since there was next to no guarantee that this would vaunt my literary gem to anything more publishable then it was before, save that it would be meeting one basic requirement that all unpublishable books had to meet before they could be officially rejected.

I'm not against rejection in the grander scheme of things since I'm one of the most critical people I've ever met, full of rejection, but rejection without eventual acceptance if it's earned is a cruel hoax. The basic rule I learned about the New York City publishing world of the '90's and early millennium was that publishing was impossible without an agent because only he/she could get a manuscript read by a publishing house, like a baby that needs a sponsor to even get it considered for a home. I was raised on Hollywood fantasies that a manuscript (the baby) need only be sent via mail and magically as if by talent and wit it would find a home if it was a pretty enough, smart enough, little manuscript, full of potential in the real world of readers, who'd judge the baby outside of the house, or family, who had accepted it and given it life. The publishing house was a vehicle for the greater acceptance of the child, and the child would pay the house or family back by making money for it, or offering it prestige, or somehow vaunting its significance. I was told that in the '70's or '80's publishers would accept books into the home not only for the financial potential, but that they'd boost the reputation of the house, and help sell some of its more lucrative children.

I'm a self publisher on Amazon so I don't know exactly how or why this dynamic changed in my lifetime, but by the '90's the megahit was the new normal, and publishers stopped worrying about how their house was perceived outside of its most financially successful children. I'm sure this mirrors society in a way, since it was the same era where greed triumphed over spirit, and Ayn Rand's "virtue of selfishness" became a popularly coined phrase. America was going through a spiritual crisis that is being fully revealed in Trump vs. Hillary about twenty years later but it takes time for the smoke to clear and see a family for what it is, or a publishing house for what it has become.

The big 5 were all about the bottom line just like Wall St. demanded daily reports to gauge significance instead of anything to do with long term growth, or quality, and I'm afraid traditional publishing has killed itself. The big 5 would argue (I think) that there just wasn't a reading public out there for literary gems, since no one read anymore, but this was a cynical short term bet on the American people, since the houses themselves had a moral responsibility to create a culture with many different children, or books. We stopped betting on our own talent as a society and gave it up to the talent agent over the artist.

Self Publishing on KDP and Create Space has its ups and downs, but the ups far outweigh the downs, since writers now have a home for their children. I haven't sold many copies of "If So Carried by the Wind" yet but that could change, and even if it doesn't I've already reached more people with my short novel than I ever would have without self publishing, and that alone is a victory that the traditional publishing world doesn't want the independent author to think about. The big 5 weren't happy with smattering sales in the name of art because I'd imagine they'd been subsumed by bigger corporations taking their profit margin to Wall St. in a world of day traders, but they couldn't keep art down forever. I know there are too many books on KDP to sort through right now, but I have faith that overtime that will sort itself out and with a little luck the worthiest children will find their way into a world of readers who'll always need stories, and the books will always exist in a digital age.