Oh, there's lot's of talk about it everywhere, self-publishing is this, self-publishing is that, self-publishing can do this for you, self-publishing is a step above vanity publishing, self-publishing is an empty, fruitless pursuit, on and on ad nauseam with the general formulation that any writer who chooses this path to publication is either an ego driven maniac or a hapless fool.
There really isn't much mainstream attention paid to the ones who have turned it lucrative, it, (the self-publishing venture), being viewed as a noiseless splash; and no one ever so much as tries to outright shame you for being one--self-published writer, that is; most rather cling to an unspoken bigoted notion that if you're self-published, you can't be a good writer. It's just that there's this continual, insistent implicature that you aren't worthy of the inner circle if you're self-published. You get the "Oh, I see," as the speaker makes some excuse to wander accidentally on purpose out of your proximity. Who's your publisher? Who's your agent? Who's representing you? Blah. . .Blah . . .Blah . . .
Well, I'm coming out of the closet. I'm self-published, and will always be. I'm proudly self-published. This will serve as my declaration as to why I am a self-publisher: I chose this path because of. . .
- TIME--It's my work; I want to share it; I believe it's worth sharing; and I don't have time to sit around and wait till it gets rejected, and I'm back at square one again. Been there, done that, no, thank you. I'll choose my time, and attend to my own schedule, thank you. If it earns anything, then wonderful; if it doesn't, and since it's out there in the marketplace, the potential is always there. I'll make tons of mistakes, but the experience and the learning are what it's all about.
- CREATIVE CONTROL--It finally dawned on me one day that I've always been in control, I simply didn't believe I was. I have been banging on closed doors for a long, long, long time with nothing to show but dogeared pages covered with dust and tear stains. I'm in the process of writing new stuff, having retired those early efforts, and now that I've awakened, I'm not going anywhere, and YOU WILL SEE ME OUT THERE; my graffiti will be on every wall that I can reach.
- SELF-WORTH, SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-AFFIRMATION--It's taken me a long time to come back around to myself, to feel good about myself, and to truly get grounded in the belief that I'm a valuing and valuable person with something worthwhile to say, that I have a true voice and view. I spent the longest time practically begging others to publish my work, and I had given up until I discovered self-publishing advocates like Dan Poynter. Dan taught me a lot about what is possible. When I discovered self-publishing, I discovered that it's always possible, that there is always an open path that you can follow to realize your dream of being published, and that you can come full circle.
- FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION--It appears to this writer that there is always someone waiting to tell you what you're supposed to say, what you said, how to say it, and by the time they've finished ripping and tearing and extracting and reworking, what's there isn't what you said at all. Maybe I wanted andante' and not allegro; maybe I wanted funk and and not pop; maybe I wanted earthiness and not space-jam slick. With self-publishing, I'm much more free to say it how I intended to say it, and not have to transfer my writer's power to do it. Don't take me wrong, there are such viable things as editing and proofreading, but with a little effort, those necessary elements of language production can be learned with minimal input.
A writer is more than a 'niche', (god, I've grown to hate that word, and the damn concept that goes along with it), a writer is a living, breathing, heart-beating fellow traveler with every other traveler in this ever-changing, ever-shifting awesome, challenging world, and to preach to me that I have to choose one, or maybe two, things to focus on or else no one will read me, or buy my work is nonsense; that's the illusion we've allowed ourselves to become victim to in the scramble to make it to the top of the heap, wherever that is. Simply judging on the basis of myself as a reader, I've read everything from How to to poetry, and if I can write something reasonably coherent in all of those areas and other genres in-between, then that doesn't make me anything other than a being connected to my world with a lot of different stuff to talk about and share.
With self-publishing you can write anything you want across whatever spectrum that is comfortable for you, and with all the networking possibilities that exist, you can be found on all of those touch points. There's an author page, and an author website where fellow readers can see the offerings. All it requires of the reader is to check it out, be brave, dare to be the first to read it. Judge it for yourself; never let anyone tell you what you're supposed to read; dare to be surprised; dare to explore and find.
I believe it's about the willingness to step forward and present a unique perspective on the world, or to teach something the rest don't fully know. In that way, as writers, we join the worldwide community forum, that vast open classroom where everyone gains from it being out there, and available for all.
In any case, the pundits, the experts in the traditional publishing biz can just go on chattering away. I'm a self-publisher, and I know full well why I am one. I'm a self-publisher because I know that I'm a writer, and though I'm not a master writer--who is?--I'm a decent, passable, passionate, committed one. I'm a self-publisher because my message deserves to be heard as much as the next person. It's taken me a long time to arrive here, and I'm not going anywhere soon. I'm here, at this point in my life, to write about what moves me, and I'm here TO PUBLISH. As the old saying goes, 'it ain't done till it's done', and that means, in writer terms, from conceptualization to publication.
By the way, all of those august writers mentioned early on, plus many more, were self-published, and the rest is history. As a further note, Jane Austen, (A Lady), chose the vanity publishing route with Sense and Sensibility.
Can we ever forget Fifty Shades of Grey.
Self-Publishing rising, the sunlit page, the word is out there.