THOU SHALT NOT SELF-PUBLISH. Hm.
More and more I think about this one and wonder why I wrote it. To my credit I did tell everyone that there are no real commandments, only suggestions but I said that more in the subtext than just out loud. It is true. There are no commandments or Golden Tickets and you sure as fuck don't need a pink permission slip from the hall-monitor to call yourself a writer, or any sort of creative person. All you have to do is create.
OK, back to the point. There once was a stigma against self-publishing because doing so told editors that either you did not have enough confidence in yourself to try and get published "for real" or that you sucked balls and/or did not self-edit first. Seeing a self-publication credit on your resume was grounds for immediate decapitation. "TRASH IT!" says the editor to his assistant. "He/She thinks he/she's so good, let 'em publish their own goddamn shit. I've got REAL writers to read." Now, this dialogue is just an assumption (and, it seems, a sort of breaking of my top commandment) but I'm sure that most editors are really wonderful people despite what Stephen King said:
"Most editors would steal the pennies from a dead man's eyes." (ON WRITING)
Coming from the Master's mouth, this bears consideration. Also, another thing that has had me thinking about the pros and cons of self-publishing came from the afterword of Brian Keene's EARTHWORM GODS, where the eds told him to take out one of my favorite parts.
The soft guy. Not Keene, his character. If you've read the Deadite Press edition you know who I'm talking about. The creep factor in that moss covered pile of walking gelatin is so shudder-worthy that I can barely believe a horror editor would want to remove it.
I've gone on enough, I think. Will I break my own commandment? I don't know. Hell, tomorrow I may wake up with zombies for testicles. It could happen....
Adios, Fair Readers. Let me count the ways....
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