Old Guidelines, retired 8 July 2012

1. This part of AW is for discussing self publishing, but is not limited to self publishers only. Everyone is welcome to participate regardless of how they're published, so long as we all remember AW's central rule: Respect Your Fellow Writer.
2. Please check your facts before posting here. That means, don't believe everything you read on the internet; don't try to disguise your opinions as fact; and don't make claims which you cannot verify. For example: if one more person states here that John Grisham self published, my head will explode. There's a useful thread here about successful writers who are said to have self published.
3. It's not "traditional" or "legacy" publishing: it's "trade" publishing, or sometimes "mainstream" or "commercial" publishing. If you're not sure which, then "trade publishing" is usually the one to use. Unless of course you mean academic publishing, which is another thing entirely.
4. Similarly, if you self-publish your own work you are a self-publisher, not an "indie" publisher or writer. An independent publisher is a completely different thing.
5. E-publishing is not the same as self publishing and anyone who suggests otherwise will be Hello Kittied without mercy. At the very least.
6. People who point out the difficulties involved with self publishing aren't necessarily being rude about self publishing, and might just have a valid point to make: but everyone is encouraged to debate this with them, so long as everyone follows our One Rule.
7. If you're going to post statistics, make sure they prove what you think they do,and that they're reliable, used in context, and verifiable. Otherwise you will make yourself look like a banana.
8. Despite the growth of self-publishing, trade publishing is still doing rather well. Let's not insist otherwise because doing so doesn't help anyone, regardless of how they're published.
9. Finally, if you think that anyone has overstepped the line, please use the "report post" button. If we mods don't know you're upset, we can't do anything to help.

I want to see a place where everyone acknowledges the inherent truths of self-publishing: It's hard. Many people won't succeed. To be successful will require a lot of effort and certain necessities (a good cover, great editing, and good marketing).

I'd like to see a forum where those in favor didn't get automatically defensive once someone stated one of those truths, didn't repeat lies, and didn't claim everyone who says anything even remotely negative about self-publishing is then treated like we're being elitist or like we don't belong and our information is unwelcome.

Absolute Write is built on information. You know what--commercial publishing isn't easy, either. That's why there are entire sections about things like trying to write a good query letter, or a synopsis, or how to improve writing, or who to submit to, or how to submit, or how to deal with rejection, etc. etc.

No one is running around anywhere on these forums and saying "You should commercially publish because you'll be guaranteed success and it's easy and then everyone will do all the work for you" or anything like that. What happens everywhere else is that there are accepted truths for commercial publishing: It's hard. You have to write a query letter whether you like it or not (and it has to rock). You need a good, edited manuscript. Even then you probably won't succeed on your first book so you have to keep trying and learning and improving and eventually if you're patient and deal with the rejection well you'll make it. And a lot of us have found success by following that.

So yeah, I'd like to see these stupid arguments that are built solely around defensiveness and worry and the fear that the other side is looking down on you (both sides have this problem) and an acceptance of these inherent truths.

Then maybe we could move on and instead of arguing about things that aren't really important and having so much sniping going on, we could be doing what we should be doing. Telling people it's hard, that success is difficult, and here's what you need to do to succeed, and here is how you do it.

Without the lies, without the exaggerations, without the guarantees, and certainly without the name calling and the petty arguments.

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