Thoughts on Self-Publishing

Posted on February 28, 2008

My good friend (plus excellent writer and God-pimp) Maurice Broaddus recently wrote a nice essay on why he hasn’t self-published. Go read it. It’s a good essay, and every part of it is true, especially the “Money should flow to the writer” bit.

After reading the essay, it got me thinking about self-publishing and the different ways it can be used and abused. See, it’s a different evil depending on the type of work.

For prose, self-publishing should be avoided at all costs. If you want reasons, go read Maurice’s blog. Sure, it’s fine for hobbyists, but it will not make your career. Every once in a while I see some talented writer pushing some half-pro/half-trash looking thing, and it makes me want to throttle somebody. They’re making themselves look like a joke. Instead of realizing this, however, they consider themselves mavericks of the publishing field. Gah!

Which is not to say self-publishing your prose can be all bad. I’ll add this exception to the rule: free promotional items. The little “A Team-Building Exercise” chaps I’m putting together for STAPLE! are an excellent example of this. I’d never dream of charging somebody for these things, but they do make for a rather cheap way of getting my name out there to 100 lucky folks.

Now, I tried the same thing a few years ago with some other stories, but I sold them for one dollar. A year later, I recycled about 94 of them.

Then there’s comics. Self-publishing is often a badge of honor in comics. A lot of incredibly talented people started out that way (and a few stayed that way). Hell, when I pitched one of the major comics companies back in 2002, I was told, “We usually only published people who have self-published before.” True story.

But you know what? Self-publishing comics is no business for a writer. Hell, I’ve found over the years that pitching comics is no business for a writer. If I were an artist I would have self-published a book years ago. Instead, I’ve spent the last three years going through the same pitch, waiting for various artists to turn in pages for a year before they either get their own deals or decide they want to self-publish their own books.

It’s a vicious circle of sorts.

So there you have some of my own thoughts on self-publishing. Feel free to send comments and/or hatemail.

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