With the recent Harlequin situation there have been many discussions and blog articles about ethics and publishing and also about what constitutes a writer. Whether you\u2019re interested or not, whether you agree or not, here\u2019s my opinion.<\/p>\n
I disagree with those who say you\u2019re not a writer if you publish with a vanity press, self-publish, or aren\u2019t published at all. If you write, whether it\u2019s a hobby or a profession, you\u2019re a writer. I see absolutely no problem with self-publishing if you make an informed decision about it. <\/p>\n
I ran a micro-press for years. People would submit their work to me and if it was accepted I\u2019d format it, take it to the photocopy shop and assemble it into booklets called zines. No one involved had any illusions about making big or even moderate sales. I paid in copies and usually lost money on the zines I produced or sometimes broke even. It was something done for the love. I had a great time and I think those involved would agree that it was a good learning experience for all of us. I felt privileged to have some wonderful stories, poems and artwork submitted to my publications. Personally I don\u2019t hesitate to purchase from independent publishers or self-published people if their work interests me. I\u2019ve read books from both major publishers and small presses that I didn\u2019t enjoy and others I\u2019ve loved. I\u2019ve known self-published authors who printed small quantities of their books (300 or so) and with hard work they sold every one.<\/p>\n
To me the problem is a vanity press hinting that if you pay their high prices to have your book published and marketed by them, you\u2019ll hit it big, get noticed by Hollywood, et cetera. Most people who are with royalty paying publishers never become household names, so a vanity press suggesting that their writers\/customers will achieve fame and fortune by that route seems objectionable to me. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the recent Harlequin situation there have been many discussions and blog articles about ethics and publishing and also about what constitutes a writer. Whether you’re interested or not, whether you agree or not, here’s my opinion. I disagree with those who say you’re not a writer if you publish with a vanity press, self-publish,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283,"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions\/283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}