{"id":17585,"date":"2013-03-04T00:01:11","date_gmt":"2013-03-04T05:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=17585"},"modified":"2013-03-03T14:19:40","modified_gmt":"2013-03-03T19:19:40","slug":"writers-and-misinformation-or-how-did-you-publish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2013\/03\/04\/writers-and-misinformation-or-how-did-you-publish\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers And Misinformation, Or: “How Did You Publish?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, the other day I saw these tweets from a fine and funky fellow I met at the Crossroads Writers’ Conference in Macon GA — here, I’ll let Mike tell the sordid tale:<\/p>\n

Just sat in on a local writers group. Good grief, the fabricated truths these people tell themselves about trad publishing are astounding.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Michael Woods (@mrmikemyself) March 2, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

“They just want to steal your ideas.” “You may not know this but they always ask you for money upfront.” Wait, what? Their opinions on trad.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Michael Woods (@mrmikemyself) March 2, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Unless you live in NY, Boston, or LA you’ll never get a publisher to buy your manuscript.” “You have to know somebody to sell your work.”<\/p>\n

\u2014 Michael Woods (@mrmikemyself) March 2, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then, the other day, a comment at this very blog suggested that publisher non-compete agreements could stop a writer from authoring blog posts and that agents (who would arguably protect against such draconian clauses) were all in the pockets of publishers anyway, and so on.<\/p>\n

Here’s the thing:<\/p>\n

This entire writing-and-publishing thing is shot through with pulsing black veins of misinformation. That’s not good for anybody, writer or publisher.<\/p>\n

So, here’s my proposition:<\/p>\n

I want you to tell us all about your experiences in getting published. That can be through traditional means big or small or through self-publishing. Feel free to drop it right into the comments or in a separate blog post (though hopefully you link back here). Tell us as much as you care to share: agent yes or no? Good? Bad? Did you get screwed? Do you have warnings to pass along? Are you happy? Rich? Poor? Fucked? Triumphant? We need to start painting a picture for people — now, this will be an incomplete picture, for we’re talking anecdotes here, not data born of some official survey. Just the same, we need more authors, I think, to start planting signposts in this hard and alien earth. And I’d like for this post to help start sketching a map.<\/p>\n

If you want to use the comments anonymously, you most certainly can.<\/p>\n

I don’t want to hear about someone you\u00a0heard about<\/em>. If it’s not an experience you personally have had, then forget it. Primary sources only please — no friend-of-a-friend fuckery.<\/p>\n

This is also not a place to stage the “self-pub versus traditional” bullshit battleground. Let us assume that both options are equal in the Eyes of the Publishing Gods, kay?<\/p>\n

Tell us\u00a0whatever it is\u00a0<\/em>you feel is valuable about your experiences getting published. No need to restrict it to information from just authors or self-publishers, either: small presses, agents, employees of big traditional publishers, IP\/copyright lawyers, whatever, whoever.<\/p>\n

Jump in.<\/p>\n

Please share.<\/p>\n

Let’s spread around some real information to help undercut the misinformation.<\/p>\n

Thanks in advance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, the other day I saw these tweets from a fine and funky fellow I met at the Crossroads Writers’ Conference in Macon GA — here, I’ll let Mike tell the sordid tale: Just sat in on a local writers group. Good grief, the fabricated truths these people tell themselves about trad publishing are astounding. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-4zD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17585"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17593,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17585\/revisions\/17593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}