Thursday, October 25, 2012

Are You Contradicting Yourself?


I recently read a guest blogpost from an indie publisher - someone clearly working at the front of the 'new' publishing frontier. Someone who had really interesting things to say about what a writer can and can't do on their own. Someone who encouraged writers to look outside the box, and reconsider what 'getting published' means.

Someone who stated outright that an agent was no longer necessary for publishing success in this day and age.

This publisher let loose some fairly radical ideas about the future of publishing and encouraged authors to contact them if they wanted to be a part of that.

This person answered a lot of comments on the blog post - most of which were dedicated to defending the insistence that authors no longer needed the traditional model of agent / editor / advertising. Frankly, I was impressed with the foresight - excited, even.

Given this particular publisher's success, I clicked on the links, wondering if they would work with agents anyway (maybe mine?). Only to find their submissions policy read:

"We are only accepting submissions from agents at this time."

(Insert eye-roll here).

I don't want to work with someone who presents themselves as moving forward in new and exciting directions, but turns out to be doing exactly what everyone else is doing. I'm guessing you don't either.

Once I got over the irony, I realized there was a lesson for all of us in this:

Be careful what you put out there. Be careful what you defend. Because the rules can change - or your opinions might.

But first and foremost, think carefully about what you say in social media. Are you contradicting yourself? Because, take it from me, if you do, it makes you look like a tool.

Your Turn: No question today because I'm busy scanning old blog posts for the ones I don't agree with anymore... #wink

2 comments:

  1. Haha, hilarious. Yep, you've got to be careful to be consistent! If you change your mind, it's probably worth updating past posts so you don't look like so much of a tool! Let's make a deal - you let me know if you see me contradicting myself and I'll do the same for you! :-)

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