The Problem with Self-Published Authors
I’ve navigated the independent and small press publishing world for 12 years, and have been a freelance editor for 17, and during this time I have dealt with countless self-published authors. My opinions and feelings about this segment of the publishing industry has fluctuated. I used to think they were vain, talentless hacks with egos too fragile to deal with the actual arts world so they are using a technology that allows them to cheat and continue to live in denial about their lack of artistry. I then started to soften my opinion as I worked in the small press world and met writers represented by larger presses and their editors, and found the traditional publishing world to be worthy of scorn, full of hacks, late-capitalist decadence and rampant nepotism, racism, sexism, and increasingly irrelevant in our culture. Being self-published started to seem rebellious, valiant even, and the quality of the works, as well as the conviction of many of its champions, began to convince me that I had been wrong about the industry as a whole. Then, when I worked as a local author coordinator for a bookstore, I spent a lot of time with that community and the feelings of disgust started to return. Clearly, not everyone is a talentless hack, there are good books in this realm, but even the good books, with scant exceptions, bothered me, and I couldn’t pinpoint why.
There had to be a middle ground, or an angle I had not grasped onto, to explain what unnerves me about this sector of the publishing world that isn’t mediocrity, conformity, and lack of imagination; all of which exist in traditional publishing as well.
Then it hit me, and this will likely piss off lots of people for me to say this, but that is the stage in life I find myself in, so here it is:
Self-publishing has no gatekeepers. You can write anything you want and not a single person will tell you no, unless you hire someone, an editor or beta readers, to push back. And even then, those people can’t stop you from a bad idea. They can’t prevent the publication of your book. Only you can. So why is it that given this enormous freedom, 99% of the books being produced are carbon copies of the sort of mainstream bullshit that the bigger publishing world prints? There is no imagination, innovation, or even attempts at uniqueness. The books fit well-established genres, archetypes, subject matter, and styles. For an industry that is supposedly at odds with the traditional publishing world, the style of these books follow MFA guidelines and mainstream writing self-help book guidance. If you spend time with local writer’s groups (a haven of anonymous self-published authors) they all spout advice from large publishers, agents, and self-help books. If the writing wasn’t for vanity, if it was in fact artistic expression, why are you trying to be like big name authors? Why are you attending conferences and book fairs and trying so desperately to market yourself to big names in the business? All you are doing is aping the George RR Martin’s of the world. The enormous output of sci-fi/fantasy, memoir, romance, and horror in this industry speaks to a group of people who are vying for mainstream recognition — in which case, just get traditionally fucking published! The only conclusion that makes sense is that these writers know they aren’t good. That at best, they can be the C-rated version of somebody successful. Not even the B version because those people get signed by big presses all the time. The average self-published writer is in the F-Z range in terms of quality, ideas, and skill. And they fucking know it, which is why they get so defensive about quality and denounce any accusations that what they are doing is for vanity instead of a passion for the craft.
If the self-publishing industry was run by genuine artists and craftspeople, it would look completely different. You would have new genres, hybrid works, the styles would be all over the place and it would be exciting and experimental and touch on social taboos and be provocative. Such books do exist, there are self-published writers like Marie Thomas who throws hammers at the status quo and traditional writing forms. But such artists are so scant as to be statistically nonexistent, and with many alternative presses popping up, many of them are getting recognized instead of being relegated to the genre-dominant hell of the industry. That is good news, these writers should have representation, but it leaves the self-publishing world progressively bland and irrelevant and bad.
If you have total freedom, the writing should reflect that. Instead, we have a mainstream and alternative book industry, both pumping out an ocean of the same mediocre garbage that consumes all the oxygen in the room, suffocating the few true artists trying to push 21st century literature into the future.