Anyone else being pressured to self-publish?

kaitie said:

The problem I have is that the way your post was worded made it sound as if someone here was making accusations. I understand that there are other elements to this and that it is reciprocal, but honestly I'm talking about a very specific thing here and have been very happy that we've avoided the typical usual accusations/rudeness/stereotyping that goes along with many conversations about similar topics.

I'd like to avoid stepping into that, and I sort of felt like that's what happened here.

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Sorry. I didn't realize I might be throwing fuel on a fire. I am very open minded and not in the least threatened by people who think differently than me, and sometimes I forget everyone is not that way.

I didn't know this was a sore subject.

kaitie said:

I'm talking about a very specific thing here and have been very happy that we've avoided the typical usual accusations/rudeness/stereotyping that goes along with many conversations about similar topics.

I'd like to avoid stepping into that, and I sort of felt like that's what happened here.

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Sure, I know what you mean, but part of the frustration you're feeling with non-writers who keep suggesting that you self-publish when that's not want you want to do is because they're treating all forms of publishing and paths to publication as interchangeable.

A sidecar complaint to that is the blurring of terms within the writing community, because it makes it confusing to know what we're talking about, and attempts to clarify inevitably end up being charged with prickly accusations of elitism.

I think we can all, writers and regular people alike, agree that there are different ways to be published and that those different routes scratch different itches.

*scratches itch* Nobody ever suggests I self-publish. Possibly because my dour look dissuades them. Also possibly because I rarely talk about my writing to people who aren't writers. I have no desire to do all the necessary stuff myself that self-publishing would require, and it would have to be done, because I know what all those steps are and I find them valuable.

I do think self-publishing being termed "indie publishing" is disingenuous, precisely because small presses have worn the "independent" label and the transfer or sharing of terms - to those who are informed about the differences - blurs those distinctions. Perhaps a different term should be developed to maintain a distinction, but it's not going to come from me.

What is disingenuous is to believe that a cadre of jargon purists can stop the tide of common usage.

I'm still chafing over what a "relational database" became.

In the reading community, how a book is published and what industry insiders call it doesn't really matter. The only thing that will matter is a) if they can find it and b) if it's any good.

The evolution of this discussion of terms, and all the sensitivities that come with that discussion, makes sense, but it's no one's favorite part of the back-channel chatter, that's for sure.

quicklime said:

when I got my degree, for doing cancer research on proteins in little test tubes in quiet labs, my mother told someone, with great earnestness, "he could have gotten a job just like those CSI guys..."

the bottom line is well-meaning people will talk out their asses like English is their second language, and they are lapsing back to their first.....since they clearly don't know what they are talking about, why let them direct your efforts?

As for a polite way, I just ignore them....

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This. It's not your responsibility not to offend them- it's their responsibility not to get offended. Your writing is yours. You publish it when, how and if "want to" intersects with "can". Not before.

I get that a lot too and it's a hell of a time convincing folks to lay off. For one, I realize the chance of me become a self-supporting author is about as slim as the chance of my high school classmates who were in a band making it big. Most people think it's far more likely than it is- due perhaps to me being the only writer they know in person who's actually finished anything. And nobody wants to be that guy/gal who finishes every sentence with, "So buy my book!"

James D. Macdonald said:

It's the most recent iteration of "Make Millions on E-bay With the Junk in Your Basement!" that we had a few years back.

Ask 'em what the last book they read was.

Wasn't self-published, was it?

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Dark Currents by Lindsay Buroker. Self-published. With fewer typos than frequent the bestseller Patricia Briggs.

That said, my experiences differ from Katie's. Most laypeople I know have no clue about self-publishing until I bring it up. (Usually because they're expressing confusion over all the freebies on Amazon.)

I can't think of one person I know in person who's assumed self-publishing is a get-rich-quick scheme. Most assume it's more like Mary Kay: something that has the potential to earn you full-time income, if you work hard at it and find the right buyers.

I'm usually asked if I have a publisher or who my publisher is. (And this is from folks who don't know I'm self-published.)

Carradee said:

Dark Currents by Lindsay Buroker. Self-published. With fewer typos than frequent the bestseller Patricia Briggs.

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Do you have proof of this? Which book are you referring to and how many typos did you find?

And considering you yourself are self-published, I don't see it as unusual that your last read was a sp'd book. Birds of a feather and all that...

I'm a voracious reader who notices every typo-and-grammar nit and picks it, unless the story holds me so spellbound that Armageddon could be going on and I wouldn't notice it. I've read three Patricia Briggs books, and if there were typos, I was too deep in the story to notice.

Obviously, a self-published book *could* do that to me, too, but none has yet.