My Decision to Self-Publish

My decision to self-publish was spur-of-the-moment. In April I made my annual two submissions to Sword & Sorceress, for the sixth year in a row, and as usual my stories were rejected. (To be fair, one year one story was held for consideration, but it was still finally rejected for being too long.) The reason was the same as well: they just didn't feel right.

And as usual I yelled at the monitor, "WHY don't they feel right?!?" But of course the monitor didn't know.

That experience has been sort of an example of the way my writing career has gone. I've been trying to get professionally published for 35 years. You would think that in all that time (or even in the last six years), at least one story would have made it. This latest rejection was sort of the last straw. Though I am just stubborn enough to try again next year, I had pretty much decided to give up on ever being professionally published.

(In all honesty that's not strictly true. I just recently submitted a story to an anthology being edited by Ellen Datlow, but frankly an ice cube would have a better chance of lasting five minutes in a deep fat fryer.)

I had resigned myself to posting my stories for free online; that way at least some people would see them and perhaps enjoy them. Then one day I was sitting in the doctor's office, when I read a Newsweek article on self-publication.

I thought, "Why the @#$%^&! hell not." After all, if I never sell a book, I'm not any worse off than being unpublished. One of the companies mentioned was Smashwords, so I looked them up, expecting them to be some kind of subsidy press.

I was wrong. They didn't charge a cent for any service, not even distribution to their retail partners, which included Apple, Kobo, Sony, and Barnes & Noble. I contacted a few authors and editors I knew and asked their opinion. They encouraged me to try.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Even so my decision had been building for some time along with my frustration. It took much soul-searching for me just to decide to post a few stories on deviantArt and three dedicated character websites. I had resisted this idea mostly because posting to the Internet is considered to be a form of self-publication, and up until now I had no intention of publishing my works myself. I wanted to be a commercially successful writer, and for better or worse, that means being published by commercial publishing houses.

The main obstacle to my going the self-publication route was that professional writing organizations like the Horror Writer's Association (HWA), as well as commercial publishers, frown on any form of self-publication. The attitude of the latter is understandable, since self-publication can cut into their business. The attitude of the former, however, is based on the desire to promote writing as a business and a profession, as opposed to being merely a hobby or an art form. This is a worthy undertaking, but it can lead to problems if taken to unwarranted extremes.

For example, when I was a member of the HWA I had been a participant of its discussion board, which was supposedly set up to help aspiring and beginning writers to improve their craft and become "professionally" published, as defined by the HWA membership rules. After being on it for about a year and a half, however, I finally resigned. The main problem was that I was constantly under attack for voicing unconventional ideas, including the idea that Affiliate members were professional writers even though they do not receive a minimum payment of 5 cents a word for their writing. (The HWA defines a professional rate of pay as being at least 5 cents a word. This is the basis for determining who qualifies for Active membership. However, despite the fact that the HWA does not define what constitutes a professional writer, many members believe that only writers who receive 5 cents a word are true professionals, despite the fact that this belief is a logical fallacy.)

Another point of contention was my defense of the right of any writer to sell to a non-paying publication. A few members considered this so abominable that they would viciously attack anyone who even just mentioned non-paying publications without condemning them. They lumped non-paying publications in with subsidy publications as being not just unprofessional, but in fact anti-professional. In fact, the rules of conduct for the discussion board actually forbid any mention of non-paying or subsidy publications. (Interestingly enough, the rules used to just forbid discussing subsidy publishers, but they were quietly changed to include non-paying markets after I pointed out one day that they did not forbid discussing free markets on the board.)

Now, I strongly oppose submitting to subsidy publishers, since I do not believe any writer should have to pay to have his or her works published. However, I draw the line at witch hunts. It is laudable for the HWA to encourage its members to submit to paying publications, especially those that pay a professional rate. It is also reasonable to expect that some HWA members would try to discourage other members from submitting to non-paying markets. But it also allows some members to persecute other members who ultimately choose to submit to non-paying venues. And considering the escalation of the criticism of publishers and venues that only pay 1 or 2 cents a word that I saw in the months before I resigned, it appears the witch hunt is broadening the range of its targets.

In the hierarchy of heretical actions condemned by the self-appointed hierophants of the HWA discussion board, self-publication is only marginally better than subsidy publishing: at least you didn't pay to have your writing published, but you still did not submit to a real publisher, even one that pays no royalties. In many ways, self-publication is considered to be way worse than being published by a no-pay publisher, because it is considered the epitome of fan or hobby writing. It hearkens back to the days before the Internet, when anyone with access to a mimeograph machine or a photocopier could "publish" his own periodical; these became known as "fanzines". The Internet just makes this easier, and has the potential of reaching far more people. Members of the HWA have attacked and ridiculed self-published stories and novels as being exceptionally bad without allowing for even the possibility of occasional exceptions. It's become a reflex action: This story was self-published? Then it must be terrible, and I won't read it. As such, self-publication can stain a writer's reputation and make becoming "professionally" published more difficult. Or so the hierophants claimed.

In the end, there were three reasons why I finally decided to self-publish:

First and foremost, the raison d'etre for being a writer is for people to read your work. It doesn't matter how good you are, if no one reads your stuff then you are not a real writer.

Secondly, self-publication has a long and venerable history. Before the rise of the large commercial publishing houses that came to dominate all aspects of the publishing industry, everything was self-published. Before printing, you wrote the book yourself; after printing, you either printed it yourself, if you were a printer, or you paid a printer to print it. Publishing houses took over the business of publishing because they could market and distribute books and periodicals to far more people than any one person or printing shop, but in doing so they also created the attitude that only they represented true, professional publication.

The Internet has changed all of that. We are back to where we were after printing became widely available, only now it's much easier to get your stuff in front of a much larger audience. And while the publishing houses consider posting to the Internet to be a form of publication, there is no legal precedent establishing this. (At least, I've never found any, and no one can provide one.) In fact, it can be argued that posting to the Internet is just a way to publicly display one's work, and according to copyright law, public display is not a form of publication, since material copies of the work are not available for people to take and keep.

Thirdly and finally, the general condemnation of self-publishing by some members of the HWA underscores an inherent double standard. It goes beyond the fact that many successful commercial writers either started out self-publishing or engage in self-publishing later in their careers. HWA members have also condemned many practices that are considered to be important, even vital, in the general business and professional world.

In fact, one need only compare professional writing with professional illustration and web design to see this double standard clearly. Being an illustrator or a web designer is analogous to being a writer (and in fact I am a web designer as well as a writer, so I know this for a fact); they only differ in details, not fundamentals. All three can do work-for-hire, commissions, or freelance projects they hope to sell. All three create forms of art they want to be seen and enjoyed by others. All three have to find some way of getting their work before their audience. All three can have their work commercially published, self-published, or published by subsidy. And all three can copyright their works.

But only in writing is self-publishing or subsidy publishing condemned to be antithetical to a professional career. In fact, in web design and illustration, self-publishing is not only considered acceptable, it is recognized as a good career move, because it gets the work out where people can see it, which in turn can generate commissions. At the very least, it gets the designer or illustrator recognized, which can help when submitting freelance work.

And this comparison also demonstrates how the arguments made by certain HWA members as to why self-publication is a career-breaker simply don't hold water. One is that the story editor will use the quality of the publication a story appeared in as a way to judge the ability of the writer. Yet art editors and design directors don't care where an illustration or a website was published, all they care about is the quality of the work itself. Another argument is that story editors will think badly about a writer who allowed his work to be published without proper editorial correction and enhancement. Yet art editors and design directors are able to look past the lack of editing to judge the potential of the work in question.

So why do story editors act in such a contrary manner? In reality, they don't, at least the professional ones do not, the ones who made a career of editing, who were taught by other professional editors, who have gained much experience in editing over their long years of work. For the most part, the story editors who act the way the HWA members claim all editors do are not themselves professional editors. They are writers who decided or were asked to edit books or magazines; they are people who start a publishing venture with sufficient capital to offer professional rates and have the good fortune to make a go of it; or they work for small or specialty presses who are unable to adequately train them to be editors.

The point being, that since what certain members of the HWA message board swore were the facts of life for writing, are in fact contradicted by the real world, I have to question their veracity.

A final reason, which was not part of my decision-making process, but has a bearing on this issue nonetheless, is the fact that after I resigned from the message board, I found I was banned from it retroactively. It is possible for HWA members who are not members of the board itself to read the messages posted there; they just cannot post replies or new messages. When I tried to access the board, however, I received a message saying I was banned. What this means for me is that, since the board was advertised as the best way a member can improve his or her craft and become "professionally" published, the HWA is attempting to cut me off from this option, in the hope that I will ultimately fail as a writer and so vindicate their worldview. If that is the case, then not only am I forced to develop my own way to become commercially successful, I am also free to use whatever method I deem fit as part of that way, without fear of censure from the HWA itself.