It’s a short but good read. I think he expresses many of the same frustrations with the current system.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2009/10/game.html

Cat – I can understand the thinking behind the “if you haven’t published a book, you’re not a writer” thing, of course, because it does haunt me so much. It’s harsh, and weighs you down, but I do think we’re in a weird place in history where we’re watching that change.

I do take solace in the fact that you can now go to Amazon.com and get a book that somebody got a $1.5M advance for and a book somebody published themselves at lulu.com (which, more and more, is NOT the dying place for crappy books – the excellent Groppi/Moles “Twenty Epics” anthology being a good example of great work coming out via lulu). For the record, I think this is awesome. I’m just not sure what to do with it yet – tho I’ve started playing around with some ideas, and I know many other writers are too (Jeff has done a *lot* with mixed media).

Because I am a strong writer, the booklife I’d like would include traditional and not-so-traditional publishing. It still makes for a stronger brand, and much more credibility (even Gary Vaynerchuk, social media marketing guru who charges 10k an hour for consulting time, went the traditional route when he published his first book [10 books, $1M deal]. He could have very easily self-published and made a profit, but chose not to. Even Cory Doctorow gives much of his work away free as *part* of his traditional publishing campaign, and has only recently started to branch out into more non-traditional self-publishing ideas now that he’s built up the following and credibility).

One of the reasons I like publishing short fiction at online publications as opposed to paper publications is honestly because it makes my stuff more accessible. I think that’s some of what the “book on the shelf” thing does, too. “Hey, just go pick it up at your book store, or Amazon!” If it’s a weird publication that they have to order from a dodgy-looking website (I’ve had a couple of those), you’ll simply be taken less seriously. There are very, very few paper mags you can actually find at the book store these days.

If nothing else, the experience was a long, drawn-out, and ultimately exhausting wake-up call about how important it is to take ownership and responsibility for your own career.

I sympathize. I wish you the best of luck with “God’s War” Stories like this make me want to read it more!

(That editor, who shall remain nameless, cut me off midsentence and stormed off in a huff because he thought I was talking out of both sides of my mouth…)

I can say that I had a critically successful book, but my imprint died after six months. And… Just like that I was back at square one, this time with a sales record that stinks.

I’ve been writing a lot more short stories these days. Part of the reason is how when magazines and anthologies crash, collapse, and otherwise mess up in my general direction, I haven’t really lost quite so much work.