Back in the day, the terms "self publishing" and "vanity press" were pretty much synonymous, the implication being that any author who took this route to seeing his or her work in print was short on talent but long on ego. People in this category were usually regarded with condescension if they were not actually ridiculed for what was considered to be their inflated sense of self importance. This, in spite of the fact that such literary luminaries as Edgar Allen Poe, Virginia Woolf, Louis L'Amour, and Mark Twain were, at one time or another, counted amoung the ranks of those who were self published. However, with the advent of ebooks and the ease with which someone can self publish, it is no longer considered quite so declasse. Additionally, with the relatively recent proliferation of Creative Writing MFA programs, there are more people than ever who hold a credential which gives them hope that they will someday see their work in print; unfortunately, they are all chasing after the limited number of opportunities that exist through maintstream publishing.
Which leads me to recount what happened when I started a writers group at my library six or seven years ago. At the time, I was eager to try my own hand at writing and already knew of a few other people in the library's book discussion group who were also writing and might be interested in participating. I put press releases in the local newspapers to cast my net a little wider and waited to see who showed up. In addition to the people who I already knew, there were almost always at least a couple of other people who were new to the library who would show up at each session. Not surprisingly, the quality of what people brought with them to be critiqued was all over the map.
And that is what brings me to a fellow we'll call Stan, a young man from a neighboring town who saw my press release in the local paper and decided to stop by to see what we were up to. I know it's a total cliche, but the short story that Stan submitted to our group was most definitely "New Yorker worthy " - I was so astounded by the quality of Stan's writing that I even asked for his permission to share his story with a few friends who I thought would also be impressed. Stan had been tryingfor a while, without success, to get his story published and I could not understand on what basis it was being rejected.
I am by no means an expert, but I do read a lot of comtemporary fiction and I think that I'm pretty good at recognizing those qualities that make a writer stand out. Unfortunately, I also understand that superior quality and commercial success do not necessarily travel in lockstep and that book publishers need to turn a profit.
But turning to self publishing in e-format is not necessarily going to help writers like Stan distinguish themselves from their less talented counterparts who will be charging into that marketplace in droves. I do think there is a niche out there for someone with a good eye and an equally good business plan to establish a publishing house that could bring to e-print at least some of the good writers out there like Stan who are still waiting to be recognized.
As a reader and librarian, I appreciate the value of the gatekeepers whose job it is to deflect substandard writing away from my path. However I wish someone could figure out a way for the market to accommodate a significantly larger number of gates.
