There are stigmas everywhere in our world. Stigma, as defined by Merriam Webster, are “a set of negative and unfair beliefs that a society or group of people have about something” and also “a mark of shame or discredit”. Read: a way for people to make themselves feel superior about something by bullying you about something you do for no reason other than they want to. I’ve faced a lot of stigmas in my life (we all have), but the one I ran into recently was the one about self-publishing.
I was recently talking to some other writers (and I’m not going to mention names, we’re a small-ish world, I have no intention of burning bridges), and another writer was talking about self-publishing versus querying traditional publishers. I don’t even think they meant to sound like this, but everything she said about self-publishing was a criticism. Not just a criticism, but a derision. Poor quality, lack of oversight, the ‘easy way out’. They made it sound like it was all just people too afraid to try to write a query letter. “That’s too hard, I’ll just self-publish”.
Now, before the devil’s advocate’s come out, I get it. We have all seen the slop that’s been put out as ‘literature’ since self-publishing became a widespread thing. Especially since AI got involved. It’s done a disservice to the writing world that a tool that was meant to open up something to everyone became overrun with people either too lazy to put effort into something they say they have a passion for, or scammers who are just trying to make a buck. People always want a ‘get rich quick’ scam, and there’s unfortunately plenty of people still willing to fall for ‘Read this and become a millionaire overnight!” or “OMG the autobiography of something that just happened to my favorite star!”
Again, I don’t think this person meant to sound as harsh as they did, and more than likely did not mean it to sound like a derision. But knowing the work that goes into my books, the time and care I take with them, agonizing over the cover art, the tone, the blurb, the advertisements so that everything is perfect, it stung. The amount of time I take writing blogs and articles and newsletters so that other people can have access to my work. The amount of money I spend on trying to set up ad campaigns and other things that fall flat. Reading and listening to others to get tips and tricks to make my writing and publishing/advertising better. The effort of networking and connecting, pushing myself out of my comfort zone constantly because I love my stories so much and want to see other people getting the same enjoyment out of it, because I believe I have stories to share with the world. All of this while holding down a normal day job, trying to navigate a relationship and the chaos that is living life in this world, and having some self-care and down time for myself. Hearing someone call self-publishing lazy and poor quality raises my hackles to the nth degree, even if they’re not talking about my specific works.
It wasn’t personal, but like all stigmas, it felt like a personal attack. Because this person had made a generalization based on her own opinions and applied it like sunblock to the whole shebang. Even though they weren’t thinking about me, or even realized I did self-publishing, had I then come out with “I self-publish”, I know what their internal opinion of me probably is going to be. While I’ve been working really hard on not letting other people’s opinions of me matter, it hurts to feel pre-judged by someone for a stigma that isn’t true.
This stigma isn’t new, or uncommon. The second self-publishing came into being, it was always seen as second-tier to traditional publishing by both readers and writers. Yet it baffles me why some writers, particularly those that live in a realm where self-publishing has probably helped them, are so against something that was created because of the very bottleneck of traditional publishing (I’m looking at you, Big 5) that kept them from being published in the first place. Suddenly people without agents, without connections, without a story that appealed to the mass market could have their voices heard. Small publishing houses, imprints, could start existing outside of the influence of major publishers. Indy lit that would never have made it past the gates could find an audience. Writers whose works reached out to a small niche could find their audience.
Yet we still hold this stigma that being with an imprint, no matter how small, is much better than just being self-published. It’s part of why I created Psychedelic Cat. Not only do I love seeing the logo I created on a book, but it looks ‘more professional’ to the reader perusing the shelves. Even though someday I hope to build PC into an actual imprint that carries other authors, for right now and the foreseeable future, it’s just me. I’m doing everything from the marketing to the writing to the artwork.
That’s what traditional publishers are supposed to be for. “Hi, we’d like to give you money to write a book for us. Done writing? Great. We got the art work ready to go, here’s an editor, a proofreader, etc. All of that done? Great, we got a few book tours for you to do. All right, that’s going pretty well. How about some more money to write a new book?
That’s the dream anyway. Some people are lucky enough, or connected enough, to live that dream. But for most of us we are in this for the passion and the love, money is a far distant dream. Yet we all hope for that dream, even the self-publishers. When I first decided that I wanted to go for this writing thing after my first book was published, I hemmed and hawed with trying to query and get picked up by a traditional publisher. I listened at my writing groups for who did what type of publishing, and how the experiences worked for them. What I found out anecdotally was that, while we all reached out to publishers in hopes of the dream, what we got was a lot less.
The truth I found was that most that were ‘published’ were with small imprints. Not that there is anything wrong with small imprints. They are a step above self-publishing in that there is someone else who has connections. They know how to get an artist to do your artwork. They can get you an editor. Maybe they can get you into some local bookstores, or author readings. Networking is a huge thing in the writing world, and being connected can get your foot in the door faster.
But for the most part, all the authors still dealt with a lot of the day to day. They didn’t get advances. They still had to do marketing and blogs and setting up their own public appearances. They didn’t have an agent. They had to write query letter after query letter. Fighting for rights when a small imprint went out of business, or because they didn’t agree with something that was being done to their book. Contracts and royalties and so on. While I could still see the benefit (and pride) of being accepted to a small imprint, it was far from the traditional publishing dream we were all promised.
For me, this is why self-publishing made sense. I could write my stories, my way, without someone telling me to change a character, or change a story because they wanted to appeal to the mass-market and the lowest common denominator. I keep the rights. I can hire an editor (although I have a really great one in my partner) and get editing software. I can do marketing. I can do my own artwork (and honestly love that my books have my own cover art). I have crafted my books, with the story that I want to tell. I guess that’s why recently I’ve been calling myself an artisan writer instead of a self-publisher. I crafted this book, start to finish. When you read this book, you get a little bit of my spirit, my love for this story, for this craft. If I had to do the marketing anyway, I wanted to do it my way, not bending to some algorithm or trend. I may lose some income because of it, but I’ve long gotten over the dreams of being rich. I just want to build something I can be proud of.
Which is why I guess the stigma around self-publishing bothers me so much. Because it’s gatekeeping. When I first self-published, I didn’t see it being a career, or even going beyond the one book. I did it because I had a bucket list item to complete a story and publish a book. Of course I dreamed of walking into a Barnes and Noble and seeing my book and my name proudly displayed on a shelf. But at that time in my life, once I had the book finished, I was dealing with a lot of things from graduating school to dealing with physical and mental issues and I just needed a win. The energy commitment needed to send letter after letter, dealing with the rejections, ultimately maybe never being picked up by any agency, was too much for me to spend. I just wanted my book published. I wanted to print it and hold it in my hand. I didn’t care if it went anywhere else other than that.
It was only after I published that book and started getting great feedback, with people constantly asking “when’s the next one going to be done? We have to know what happens!” that I realized that maybe I had some talent as a writer and this should be a thing. Which is where Psychedelic Cat was born.
This is a joy that anyone who loves and is passionate about writing should be able to enjoy. It doesn’t matter if you have fifteen best sellers represented by one of the Big 5 or someone just trying to say “I did a thing.”
The biggest thing is this: your opinion is not fact. You might not want to self-publish. That’s fine. Go with the query letter. Go with the imprints. Go with the traditional route. Go for it. I wish you luck. For me (at least right now), self-publishing and artisan writing is my route. Wish me luck. Support me like I support you. We should be supporting each other, not gatekeeping and being elitist. You might have an opinion that one way is better than the other, and you can give advice as far as “this is my experience”, but there is more than one way to get to an end goal. Your way doesn’t work for everyone. That’s the thing we always need to remember. We need to support each other, critique, share, help each other grow and learn and hone our craft. We need to stop tearing each other down.
The other thing to remember is that you are allowed to experiment and try different things. I’m working on query letters right now for short stories for magazines. I’m writing letters to send to book reviewers. Maybe you self-publish, then realize you’d rather go traditional. Or a hybrid. Maybe you have a book that’s not your normal, and it makes sense to publish it a different way than you normally do. That’s the great thing about creativity. You can constantly push your boundaries, try new things, go new routes. Don’t allow yourself to get pegged into a hole that you don’t want to be pushed into. A lot of writers write in multiple genres, different formats, experimenting and pushing themselves to new challenges. Keep your mind open.
I know stigmas like this don’t change just because I wrote a blog. It takes each and every person involved going “I don’t want to hold this anymore.” Which is hard, because some people believe so strongly in their opinions, even if based on wrong assumptions, that they will never give it up. Yet things do change, if enough of us speak up and stand up for what we believe. I guess I just needed to say something, because this one moment affected me so much and it came out of the blue.
The odd thing about the situation was that it brought out one silver lining: I never realized how passionate I am about what I do. Sometimes I question whether it’s worth it. Whether I’m doing the right thing. But getting worked up because someone questioned it, oddly enough makes me feel like I am on the right path because I believe in it. I have faith in what I do.
The biggest thing to remember (and this is something I’m constantly reminding myself as well): don’t judge people without knowing what they’re going through. There’s probably a reason why they are doing things. Or they’re experimenting, learning, trying to find a path for themselves. If someone changes how they do things, give them space to learn and grow.
We are writers, and we understand the power of language, whether spoken or written. We can critique, give advice, constructive criticism, but give it in a positive manner. You can hold opinions, and feel strongly about them, but leave space for other people to have their opinions as well. You don’t have to agree with them. Let’s build a community that supports, not one that tears each other down. There’s plenty of other people willing to do that in this world.
Until next time Kitty Kats!
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