the self-publishing polemic

Dear reader,

Recently, I've been hearing a lot about self-publishing. Generally, the conversation goes like this:

Person talking to me or writing on the internet: Did you hear? There is some girl who writes formulaic novels about vampires and love affairs and sells them for next-to-nothing on Amazon, but hey! she is making a fortune doing it, and why shouldn't we all take a nom de plume and publish a bunch of saleable garbage so that we can be rich too?

Me: Is that a real question?

Person talking to me or writing on the internet:  I mean, of course it would be ironic of us, and not represent our real literary voice or interfere with a serious career and no one would ever know!

Me: Except our neighbors, who notice that we now drive a hybrid Ferrari instead of an old VW.

Okay, those aren't exact quotes, but I think that you understand what I'm trying to say.

There are also people who self-publish because they aren't interested in reaching a large audience, or just want a family history printed for people who are actually in their family, but those aren't the self-publishers that interest me.

I was over on htmlgiant the other day and read Roxane Gay's column about this topic. It's called "Taking No For An Answer," and it was a very thought-provoking read. Her premise is that we've villified the publishing industry to such an extent that writers are starting to see self-publishing as this liberating act.

"We are not taking rejection any longer!" we yell, and post our drivel defiantly on the web or as an Amazon e-book.

Gay argues that perhaps we are too quick to demand recognition, that writers who are rejected by publishers often have products that are not ready to be published. (Stop yelling about injustice. I didn't say always.)

I think what is comes down to is this: why do you want to publish a book?

If the answer is seriously to make money, then perhaps you should go into prostitution or time-shares. I hear they can both be quite lucrative if you have the right personality.

But seriously, the reason that I want to publish a book is because I feel like I have stories to tell, a literary voice that someone might want to listen to - and hopefully more than once. I would like to be able to support myself as a writer, yes, but my endgame doesn't begin with an $ and end with .00.

What I am trying to say is (and mind you, this is from an unpublished wannabe), that I'd rather wade through a pile of rejections and write something I can claim with my real name than make a couple hundred thousand dollars for writing about bloody necks.

What do you think? Is self-publishing as self-congratulatory an exercise as I perceive it to be?

                                                                                                                            Talk soon,

                                                                                                                            Rachel