One of my favorite young writers who is just learning his craft, but already capable of turning a sharp sentence enough of the time to demonstrate more potential than I did at his age, has been published in two non-paying anthologies and in two non-paying ezines. Tonight was his first time to come to my chatroom and his first time in another chatroom where there were several professional writers in it. One led to another as the host of the other room dropped by and invited him there also. But I’m getting away from my topic.

He asked me a question that has haunted me, which is why I am still up at this hour. It won’t leave my head until I have examined it.

“But I’m still published, aren’t I?”

“No, you’re not PROFESSIONALLY published,” I answered, putting a different spin on it, I hoped.

However, the word ‘published’ simply means being in print. And in the sense of being in print, yes he is published. Which is why I had to add the word professionally. But that was when I started really thinking about it.

It seems to me at this point that there are two diametrically opposite cultures within publishing. A culture and a sub-culture. The sub-culture is a direct result of the internet and the rise of POD. And, yes, it is a culture. For the moment, for lack of better terms, I’m going to call the culture pro publishing and the sub-culture amateur publishing.

Professional publishing is the one we all think of when we talk about publishing, the one that pays the writer for the work. I believe that writers like any other craftsman should not give their work away for free. Those who give their work away are amateurs, doing it for love and not for money. The pros are like the architects who design the houses. Then the contractors (editors and copy-editors and publishers) buy the design and build (refine through editing, market, cover art, cover design) the finished product. Everyone involved is getting paid, everyone has been trained by experience and study, and everyone is a professional.

I’ve seen the fur fly between the pros and the amateurs when the amateurs demand equal standing. I’m not going into that tonight, I’m just defining the cultures.

The amateurs do everything themselves or in groups of other amateurs like themselves. They post stories in free places around the net, they self publish or they go to back-end vanities like PublishAmerica and Lulu.com. They pay for things out of their pocket instead of being paid for them. But it goes beyond that.

They don’t have access to major markets. The bookstores won’t carry their product. Even getting into the online sources to sell things is getting harder and harder. They don’t have the highly skilled development and copy-editors who can improve their product and help them polish it. But it goes beyond that.

They form small online communities where the imperfections of their work is less noticeable because they are not being compared to the pros by the pros. You are looking at a different set of standards within an almost tribalistic setting. Some achieve fame or notoriety within their tribe. The tribe becomes everything. Within the tribe, holding that printed volume in their hands or having something accepted by that non-paying ezine, they are published. In their eyes, there are no imperfections.
Like all marginalized cultures, the members of the tribe of amateurs wish to have equal standing with the tribe of the professionals. They are using the same terms, but the terms do not have the same meanings for each group.

To Be Continued.

Some brief creds, a partial list

articles published in:
Movieline
Cinefantastique
Washington Post Book World
Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Drive Guide
Black Belt
Martial Arts Weapons
Monsterland
Thrust: Science Fiction in Review
Science Fiction Review

Former MPAA Accredited Journalist.
Currently Active member, SFWA, HWA