How to Be Happy and (Unconventionally) Published
Steve Beisner -- February 4, 2009
To mix a metaphor, "What if a short story fell in the woods and no one was there to read it?" We all want recognition and even riches, but many will confess that what got us started with the art and craft of arranging words, sentences, paragraphs, ideas, and stories was something more internal: the way we feel when the paragraph we've just completed lies before our eyes and is "right."
I suspect that writers have been complaining about the dreadful state of the publishing business since the week after the first volume made its way out of Mr. Gutenburg's establishment.
Most of us who publish, whether we make enough to feed ourselves or only enough to whet our appetites for more, are aware that there is change underway in publishing -- and it's not good. Mergers and business failures have reduced the number of conventional publishers. The surviving large publishers seem less interested in the intrinsic quality of their product and more interested in the celebrity of their authors. Editors who know something about the art and craft have been replaced or at least pushed aside in favor of fresh faces with a Master of Business Administration. Even the big houses are publishing fewer books.
It's discouraging. It's tragic. It's an outrage. But the world is not going to change just because we don't like it. My suggestion to writers who might be tempted to give up is to remember the good advice we've all heard: the most important thing for a good writer is the act of writing.
Study your craft, listen to criticism and take it to heart, and hold on tight to that feeling of having put something almost ineffable onto paper. Then find a way to get your stuff out there -- that's the part I want to talk about.
My publishing successes are dear to me, even if they're modest compared to the most successful writers I know. But some of my work for small audiences has been the most satisfying.
In this era of economic challenge conventional publishing is getting harder, and when it's time to let your literary children out into the world, you'll want to consider small publishers, university presses, and local publications. But there are other possibilities as well.
There is a long history in the world of visual art of work created not for sale but for more personal reasons. Writers, on the other hand, tend to feel that until their work is published, it's not finished. If you write a novel length work and can't find an audience it can sap the energy right out of your creative life, so give yourself some options: the web, for instance.
OK, so maybe it's not the best place for that dust-covered block-buster that's been sitting in your drawer, but why limit yourself to one kind of writing? How about an essay, a short story, a book review.
Remember "that feeling?" Remember how it feels when everything you know, even unconsciously, works together in the scene you've just completed? You can get that energizing experience from almost any kind of writing, and you should -- because you can take that energy and apply it to your other writing projects. But what can you do with such alternative projects?
The answer is staring you right in the face as your read this. Publish on line. I can hear the groans now... "Oh no, not another blog. Blogs are awful." Well, they're not. At least not all of them. And they're not all just personal opinion disguised as news.
Take a look at writing as jo(e) at http://writingasjoe.blogspot.com/. I don't know who "jo(e)" is, but her site is great. The writing is good. Good enough that after you read a few of her pages you'd like to sit down with her over a cup of something warm and talk. Notice that she's not blogging to sell her other work, rather the online work stands on it's own, as an end in itself.
Or look at Angry Professor's pages. (http://gentlemansc.blogspot.com/) In the sidebar, the reader discovers this disclaimer:
This blog is 100% FERPA compliant. It is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Angry Professor is the creation of Mr. Norrell, who lives in Guam with four rhesus monkeys and a gecko. He has never taught at a university.
Frankly, I don't know if The Angry Professor is a professor or not, or is a man or woman, even. I do know that what (s)he writes is worth reading.
This article is not about setting up your own website or blog. There's plenty of information available, and you can write to me, editor@inkbyte.com for some pointers.
Since I edit the rag, I can't resist plugging Ink Byte Magazine as another example and a possible outlet for your own work. We love writing about writing, so send us your stuff. There are many other online magazine or journal sites that you can publish on if you're not interested in creating your own site or blog, but I'll review those in another article.
If you dig a little, you can find a treasure chest of literary jewels on the web. Try following links on a site you like to other sites that the author recommends. The point is that for talented writers the web is a viable way to publish your work: if not all of it, at least the pieces that are small enough to work with the Internet as a medium. You're in control: imagine yourself as Benjamin Franklin publishing your own Poor Richard's Almanac.
So don't just sit there not writing because you think "there's no market." Write well, write something that sends "good stuff" shivers down your spine when you read it over, and get it out there!