19 December 2012

To Self-Publish or Not to Self-Publish?

Am I terribly old hat because that question terrifies me? Something tells me I'm not alone. I know self-publishing is no longer a last resort, a grudging alternative to "traditional routes," but something in me bristles at the notion of my actually doing it.

I'm currently compiling a manuscript of poetry. I thought with the wealth of poems I've managed to produce over the past several years that it might not be that hard. I was sadly wrong. As daunting as just putting things together to produce a cohesive piece and polishing it all up is, publishing is so much more terrifying.

I tell myself that I can continue to submit to contests--single pieces, three poems, or even a chapbook or whole collection--and that once I'm comfortable I can submit a finished MS to "reputable" publishers. My mind flags them as reputable, even though I know the literary journals and other places I've been submitting are just as reputable in reality. Perhaps what my brain means is "prolific." Then I can start my slog up the literary ladder until I have a chance to spin that magic fame and fortune wheel.

As I sit back and ponder this line of thinking, I realize I've had it since I was in third grade, when I first decided I wanted to be a writer. But where do I go from here?

I felt a similar panic when I was confronted with the concept of literary agents a couple years ago. The idea of marketing my product was something which simply had not occurred to me. Doesn't the publisher do that? The inner workings of the literary world sometimes seem as complex as the worlds the books they publish reveal to readers. I hope this anxiety at the concept of self-publishing is a rapidly passing one. It seems that more and more people are open to the idea of it, but the practical aspects of it are still a mystery to me. A simple Google search yields an incredible amount of information regarding self-publishing: articles, blog posts, reviews of self-published books, books about self-publishing, self-published books about self-publishing.

It seems like I've reached the end of this post and don't have much in the way of resolution. Rather than pontificating further, here's a quote regarding the nature of poetry from Charles Simic, taken from the Poets Laureate Anthology:

                 I remember once--I was teaching in the schools in
                 El Paso, Texas. And a student had asked . . . me
                 what poetry was good for. And I was stunned,
                 because it's such a serious question. It's a difficult
                 question. And suddenly a hand went up. It was a
                 young woman. So I said . . . "What do you think?"
                 And she said, "To remind people of their own
                 humanity." That struck me as so sensible, so
                 moving, so poignant . . . . You know, I'm mortal,
                 I exist, I have my own conscience, I have my own
                 being, myself. Here I am with this universe. Maybe
                 there's a God; maybe there's no God. This is my
                 predicament, my human predicament. Poetry
                 reminds readers of that.

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