Publishing: the Write Way, for the Write Reasons - who decides what gets to be read?

"What is it that's so appealing about the writing life?" Ask that question of twenty writers at random, and no doubt you'll get twenty different answers - all of them equally valid. Now ask those same twenty people if their writing has an audience. Most of them will answer, "I hope it will, some day."

So tell me, what is it that keeps us writing if we only hope that someday, someone, somewhere, will have the good sense to recognize what we've written is suitable for publication? Do we think that our subject matter is only worth reading if it's chosen for publication from a stack of manuscripts on some agent or (if we're lucky) editor's desk?

Or do we have a message that needs to get out there - whether it ever makes it onto the current list of 'what everyone wants to read'? Could its value lie elsewhere? Could there be a fire in our belly that burns words onto paper, which have the ability to set the world on its end? Are we cheating the reading/thinking public by denying them access to our thoughts and words while we wait to be 'discovered' as the newest Hemingway or Grisham?

We've all heard "the pen is mightier than the sword" - but what good is a sword if it remains in its sheath?

OK - I know you know by now where I'm going with this, so let me ask you straight out, "Is there ever a good reason to self-publish? Or is self-publishing still equated with the vanity press that respectable writers despise as the work of 'those writers' who only want to see their names in print - they don't care about writing real books that get selected by real agents and shopped to real editors who select them for real publishers who sell them in real bookstores."

I'm sure for some there's a thrill associated with seeing their name on the spine of a book in a store or library. But that's never been a motivator to keep me writing. My name on the spine of a book? Eh, maybe someday...I've been told by several that "I have a book in me." There may come a day when I actually sit down to write one. But that's not what keeps me writing.

I write because I have something to communicate - and it needn't be filtered through the perception of the publishing world to be produced as a tool to reach my audience. I seriously don't care if my message ever makes the 'best seller list' - I just want to get it in the hands, through the eyes, and ultimately into the heart of the people who are listening. It's my message...I don't want someone else re-writing it to suit what they think my audience should or wants to read. If I write 'meat', it's meat I want to offer - I don't want an editor turning it into more publicly palatable veggies or cake.

Mine isn't necessarily a popular message - but it is mine and I stand by it. If self-publishing means that I maintain control, then self-publishing is the way I will go. If, someday, I decide there's a book in me that needs to come out.

In the mean time, however, my writing intent is to open the hearts and minds of people who have somehow forgotten what it means to see the world through a fresh set of eyes. To awaken those who have fallen into habits and patterns of being at peace with society as it is and as it becomes.

If it stirs the pot - so be it - we need our pot stirred. We need to see ourselves in light of the role we were created for - then we need to take ownership of that role and live it out through our everyday lives on this ever changing world stage upon which we live.

We need words that stir us up, words that incite us to action, words that we can stand by, live by or die for - words that someone has to write for our reading...

Or is it our mission to write those words for someone else to read?

We are writers - hear us roar: let's use the power of our pens to write LIFE into world around us. Now, it's up to you...are you writing to please an agent or editor? Or do you have a message in you that the world needs to read?

...and so I leave where I began: "What is it for you that is so appealing about the writing life? Do you have an audience? What are you doing to reach them?"


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