Saw a Washington Post feature about Kelly Corrigan, author of the cancer-recovery memoir, “The Middle Place,” whose publisher put her book into print a year ago and let it sit. Corrigan did her own promotion—book parties, a video trailer, a reading posted on YouTube, that sort of thing—and has managed so far to sell about 80,000 copies in hardcover and 260,000 in paperback. “Book publishers actively market and promote authors, of course,” the article said, “particularly the big names, but for thousands of writers it’s a figure-it-out-yourself world of creating book trailers, Web sites and blogs, social networking and crashing on friends’ couches during a tour you arrange.”
At which point I must ask: So why mess with a publisher? It’s 2009. You can publish and market your book yourself. I know what you’re thinking—it sounds a bit like sour grapes to me, too. But we’re not 5 years old. Do we really need a gold star from the teacher to like the picture we’ve drawn? If you think about it, the only thing a conventional publisher of ink-on-paper books can give you is the right to say that “a publisher” deigned to publish you. Some gatekeeper opened the gate, so you must be worth letting in. But here’s what’s true: Publishers produce widgets that happen to be books; the tastes of editors are idiosyncratic or business-based, and can’t be taken as measures of whether your work is worth doing. For that particular measure, you have to look elsewhere.
And where is that? Face it: You’re writing out of some weird, unending personal need . . . otherwise, you’d skip all those fraught hours at the keyboard and go out and party. It’s the writing, not the gatekeepers’ okay, nor even the number of books you might sell, that makes you feel you’ve met the need. What publishers can do for you is provide credentials for pursuing a teaching job to help make the rent, but that’s about it. The true indicator of whether your work is worthwhile lies in whether you—you, Bunky—can look at it and say, “Yes, this is what I am supposed to be doing. This sounds true.” I’d use this as the measure. And not because it’s part of the laudable quest to transcend crass and worldly standards of success, but simply because it’s a better standard.
Ted the Cat (1994-present) is a domestic shorthair blogger and vers libre poet. He also enjoys sleeping, eating, and lurking. Ted the Cat co-habits with Kaze,
also a blogger at 317am.net.
Even 10 years ago, I would have said publishers' publicity staff help get your book reviewed in newspapers, maybe even nab an interview in a small-bore local TV show. Sadly, there are not many "official" places where books get reviewed anymore — I'm still mourning the Washington Post Book World- so you might as well go out and peddle your works on your own and create a buzz through friends, Facebook, etc..