How (Maybe) to Publish Your Work
It’s a perennial question, one that’s risen (or, perhaps, sunk) almost to the level of political discourse, especially as the Internet has opened up options for self-publication and the major publishing houses have been harder and harder to access. Do I spent the enormous time and effort (and time, again) to find a niche for my story or poem? Or should I just put the material that I want the world to read… out there?
Here's what Sartre says about manuscripts: if you keep them in the drawer, they don't exist. A literary work, he argues, doesn't exist until it's published. After all, writing is a social process, not an exclusively individual one.
I like the quotation. (Which generally means I agree with it.) I wonder, of course, how Sartre would view someone like Emily Dickinson, who chose not to publish her work because publishers of the time couldn't replicate her artistic touches, fonts, etc. I imagine there are lots of literary geniuses who go unrecognized and whose work still sits in some dark drawer—though Sartre would probably say no one's a literary genius until the light's been shined on them.
I had a conversation recently with one of my writing students, who said, “So, damned if I do and damned if I don't, right? I can't publish on my blog, because then no magazine will publish it. And if I do publish a piece in a magazine, then I can't publish it on my blog because it kind of belongs to that magazine and I have to say: here's my cool story on Literary Review X.”
She makes a good point. And one thing I’ve found, that I’d add to that, is this: getting published the traditional way takes time. Publishers are, for a variety of reasons, incredibly slow in getting back to writers. In the time between when you submitted your work and it gets accepted, years may have passed. Your writing may have changed. The subject no longer feels relevant to you. None of this is very encouraging.
Each publisher holds rights for different lengths of time; once those first rights are up, you're free to post your work on your own site (or re-publish it elsewhere). Sometimes the rights are for a week and sometimes for a month or two. Sometimes for a year. But eventually, with the legitimate publishers, you get your rights back. (That's not to say it's illegitimate for a publisher to purchase all rights, but that's more unusual. And in such cases, when all rights are claimed, the author needs to get permission to re-publish the piece even on their own blog.)
These are tough questions we all have to face. It's understandable why a publisher wouldn't want work that's already been seen on someone's blog or website. Lots want fresh work, work that's not been seen available before. And as everyone these days seems to know, Google’s search algorithms make sure to punish those who would use duplicate content. (One place that published my work had me sign an agreement that I was not self-plagiarizing—they didn't want me using phrases or ideas I'd used in any other piece.)
I do keep coming back to Sartre, though, because I do believe that our words are meant to be heard, read, considered, examined… ideas won’t change the world if they’re not available to be discussed. Language is communication, and stories tell us where we’ve been and—at their best—where we’re going. That’s impossible if we’re forever refining what we’ve written, if we wait for the “right time” to try and put our work out there. (As with everything else in life, that “right time” never comes.)
So if you’re trying to figure out how best to share your ideas, your stories, your poetry, your words… make that a priority. Figure out how to self-publish properly (because no one will look at your work if you haven’t had it edited and formatted and so on), or do a marketing blitz, sending out everything you have. Do something.
The world needs your words.