Dear Mr. Keillor,
I was just wondering what your thoughts were about self publishing books. Do you think it's a good idea for someone that wants to really become a writer, or should they stay the course and continue to query agents in hopes of one day being picked up by an agent?
Thanks!
Tony G.
Harker Heights TX
Self-deception is the occupational hazard among writers. It's awfully hard to look at our own work objectively and so we might be filled with loathing for something that's actually worthwhile. Or we might be in love with something that is practically unreadable. We look at it and see what we intended it to be and not what's there. And so we send the work to a disinterested party, somebody unrelated to us, somebody who can easily say no, and we hope for their good opinion. We're asking them to invest money in us, and money serves to focus their attention. They're on the line. When you publish yourself, you're skipping some of these steps and taking a big risk with your own money. I've seen so few self-published books that were worth anyone's time. "Vanity publishing" is a pretty accurate term for them. The authors believed in their own genius to the point that they dispensed with the services of an editor, and it shows. Having said that, though, I must confess that I am planning to publish myself this summer: a collection of sonnets and also a collection of newspaper columns. Good luck to you, whatever you do.
I run a local writers group, and some of our members have self-published. I agree that the loss of an editor can sometimes cause the book to suffer. There are some cases though, where the rewards of finally seeing your work in print outweigh the issues caused by not having an editor. I recommend finding a local writers group and getting some editing help through them. Or, maybe there is a community college or university in your area that may be able to help.
Posted by Susan B. | April 26, 2008 6:04 PM
Some kinds of things lend themselves very well to self-publishing. Like when you know the audience will be small ahead of time - a team yearbook or a textbook that your students will read. lulu.com allows you to self publish for free, and you and your audience can pay for printed copies on demand, very reasonably priced.
Posted by Lisa | April 26, 2008 8:05 PM
Art and word are subjective...As the prolific songwriter (tongue planted firmly in cheek) Alan Thicke once wrote:
Now the world don't move to the beat of just one drum
What might be right for you, may not be right for some ...
...It takes Diff'rent Strokes to move the world
FAMOUS SELF-PUBLISHED BOOKS:
Remembrance of things Past, by Marcel Proust
Ulysses, by James Joyce
The Adventures of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter
A Time to Kill, by John Grisham
The Wealthy Barber, by David Chilton
The Bridges of Madison County
What Color is Your Parachute
In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters
The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. (and his student E. B. White)
The Joy of Cooking
When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple
Life’s Little Instruction Book
Robert’s Rules of Order
OTHER FAMOUS AUTHORS WHO SELF-PUBLISHED
Deepak Chopra
Gertrude Stein
Zane Grey
Upton Sinclair
Carl Sandburg
Ezra Pound
Mark Twain
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Stephen Crane
Bernard Shaw
Anais Nin
Thomas Paine
Virginia Wolff
e.e. Cummings
Edgar Allen Poe
Rudyard Kipling
Henry David Thoreau
Benjamin Franklin
Walt Whitman
Alexandre Dumas
William E.B. DuBois
(Thanks to Dan Poynter's website for this info; see www.parapublishing.com)
REJECTED BY PUBLISHERS
Pearl S. Buck - The Good Earth - 14 times
Norman Mailer - The Naked and the Dead - 12 times
Patrick Dennis- Auntie Mame - 15 times
George Orwell - Animal Farm
Richard Bach - Jonathan Livingston Seagull - 20 times
Joseph Heller - Catch-22 - 22 times (!)
Mary Higgins Clark - first short story - 40 times
Alex Haley - before Roots - 200 rejections
Robert Persig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - 121 times
John Grisham - A Time to Kill - 15 publishers and 30 agents (he ended up publishing it himself)
Chicken Soup for the Soul - 33 times
Dr. Seuss - 24 times
Louis L'Amour - 200 rejections
Jack London - 600 before his first story
John Creasy - 774 rejections before selling his first story. He went on to write 564 books, using fourteen names.
Jerzy Kosinski - 13 agents and 14 publishers rejected his best-selling novel when he submitted it under a different name, including Random House, which had originally published it.
Diary of Anne Frank
Posted by Marcus Eder | May 12, 2008 12:44 PM