I read an article recently about the possibility of changing how we think about publishing. I didn’t want to agree with it, but in the end, I did.
Publishing means nothing anymore. Anyone can publish anything at any time. My apologies to all the self-published writers out there. This isn’t a degradation of your work—I’ve read many self-published books that were excellent. I’ve also read some that should have been edited several times before release. (I’m not saying traditionally published books are any different, unfortunately.) All I’m saying is that being published once had a sense of elevated accomplishment attached (simply writing a book is quite an accomplishment regardless of quality), but now, it’s commonplace.
The author of the article suggested “curation” as the word to differentiate between traditional publishing and self-publishing. If a work is curated, it has been chosen from a group of works, published or unpublished, and shared by a third party. He suggested that publishers and journals begin requesting “uncurated” writing, leaving the door open for writers to publish their own work on websites or Amazon without penalty.
An author could then list his works as published and/or curated. It’s less complicated than the search on Amazon for the publisher, and then researching the publisher to determine if it’s self-published. “Published” would only mean it is available to read online or in print. “Curated” would end the research—someone else chose to purchase and share it. (Although “purchasing” would not necessarily be accurate in the case of many literary journals.)
I have friends who have self-published. I can hear the arguments already. Being self-published makes some people doubt the quality of the book already and adding “curation” as a qualifier will only make this situation worse.
Not necessarily. As I previously wrote, being free to publish your writing on your website or wherever you choose and still being eligible to submit to publishers and magazines for curation only heightens the probability of readers. By today’s standards, once something is published anywhere in any form, it is unlikely to be published again.
My vote is yes for this change. There is a difference between self-publishing and traditional publishing; there should be a new term to simplify the difference.
