Shut Up and Write

It’s been said, but I suppose it isn’t sinking in.

What with conferences being in full swing, some articles about the DOJ making decisions about publishing, and more independent authors cropping up every day, the issue won’t die.

But there really is NO ISSUE.

Repeat after me: DECIDING TO SELF PUBLISH DOES NOT IN ANY WAY MAKE YOU A THREAT TO NEW YORK PUBISHERS, NOR IS TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING A THREAT TO YOU.

Many authors still chase the dream of getting a contract with The Big 6.  Some, like myself, have been successful publishing independently/directly, and no longer have any particular interest in that dream.  That does not mean a mutually exclusive hostility exists anywhere but in the minds of people who don’t completely understand publishing.

I currently publish through CreateSpace and Amazon.  Initially, I had plans to continue submitting to New York.  After a little more than a year of doing well on my own, and liking the control it affords me, I’m sticking with the indie way.  But I’m not deluded into thinking Random House is holding clandestine meetings about me.  They have open meetings about how to combat the success of Amazon, I am sure, and that’s how business work: do it better and beat the competition. But that competition keeps all of us healthy.  It inspires improvement, drives change, keeps us working harder.

Authors can make their choices. Hostility and trash talk brands the speaker as unprofessional, clueless, and childish.  Pick your team—or double team, lots of authors have been happily hitting both ways—and shut up. Put your time into your manuscripts.