Forum: Author Hangout

In the other threads some people were implying only those who had a book published via a recognised publishing house is a a published author.

I'm not excluding any other options, just listing the two options that were all that was available, plus two more modern options where you can get paid for your story today. If you wish to include more options, feel free to do so.

I didn't know this was meant to be a grammatical question.

It may not have been. Ross blew it from a grammatical point of view when he added 'by someone else'. The dictionaries don't define who is doing the publishing.

I consider posting a story on SOL to be publishing a story for it meets the definition of making it available to readers. No mention of financial compensation in the dictionary either.

It may not have been. Ross blew it from a grammatical point of view when he added 'by someone else'. The dictionaries don't define who is doing the publishing.

Otherwise self-published author would be an oxymoron.

AJ

Well, if so, then the term 'published author' appears to be a meaningless vanity label.

I agree.

I'm not certain how to understand your list. Is the list exclusive? So, someone who sells a hundred copies of his book, either via a publisher or by self-publishing, is a published author, but someone who posts his stories on a publically accessible website and has 10,000 readers, is not a published author?

I think that someone who posts online, whether stories or a simple (or complex) blog, is either an 'online poster' or an 'online blogger'. Publishing is a more specific term, meaning they make their books available for sale (even if they only offer them for free). That involves formatting the document, either for print, or in a formalized ebook format (mobi, epub, pdt, etc.). However, simply posting words on a page doesn't count as being "published".

That's not to diminish bloggers, as some do quite well for themselves, but it's a different technical specification.

However, I'd have to question Ernest's definition of '20 or more copies', as that seems a dubious quantity, as it's a purely subjective number, not based on any specific objective guideline. If we start taking individual definitions, we'll have thousands of different definitions, from selling 2 copies to 5 million.

Publishing is a more specific term, meaning they make their books available for sale (

Go check a few dictionaries and you will find they don't mention the stories have to be sold, all the dictionaries say is the stories must be distributed to the public.

AJ,

There are e-book publishing houses out there that don't provide print books at all. However, they do have editors and an in-house selection process where a manuscript has to be approved before they allow it to be on their site. So the stories are vetted by experienced editors and either rejected or approved for distribution. That's much the same as the traditional publishers, except no typesetting or printing.

As to if the BBC accepts it for their contest or not isn't a relevant filter as they only allow authors from a select list of print publishers, according to what was said before, and not all print publishers. So the BBC is already ignore a lot of published authors, this is just another group they're ignoring.

There are e-book publishing houses out there that don't provide print books at all.

I think there's a useful analogy between a book appearing in print and a movie getting a cinema release. A book only available as an e-book is analogous to a movie going straight to video or a TV movie.

Whether people think it's justified or not, there's still enormous industry cachet attached to a reputable publisher releasing a print edition of a book.

AJ

Whether people think it's justified or not, there's still enormous industry cachet attached to a reputable publisher releasing a print edition of a book.

I never said otherwise. The issue is some people say you're only a published author if one of the big publishing houses takes your book and does a full print run then distributes it through their system. While that may have been true 40 years ago, it's not true today due to the many electronic options available for distribution and making it available to the public.

So the issue today is where do you draw the line, and how do you define the new line? Which is the point of the discussion, to get people thinking and talking about that to see if we can find a reasonable consensus on the new line.

typo edit of ti=it

While that may have been true 40 years ago, it's not true today due to the many electronic options available for distribution and making ti available to the public.

We'll have to disagree on that. The industry has its jargon, and whether it's traditional publishers, book reviewers like the New York Times, story competition organisers like the BBC, or various creative writing courses and groups, more respect is accorded authors who meet their criteria of 'published author'.

ETA:
If Joanna Average writes a good novel, which she thinks is a good prospect for commercial success, and sends it to a reputable agent, the chances of the novel not being rejected are around 1%. Even then the agent may stipulate considerable reworking before it's good enough to submit to a reputable publisher.

It's that degree of selectivity which makes the cachet of being a published author so enduring. Alternatives to a reputable publisher will have to match that exclusivity before users can legitimately claim equality with published authors.

AJ

I'm not familiar with 3 but it also sounds like a 'no' to me

It is essentially option 4 with someone aiding the author with editing, marketing, and distribution.

I'm not familiar with 3 but it also sounds like a 'no' to me. The BBC, for example, wouldn't allow such authors to enter their national story writing contest because it's only for published authors, and an Electronic Publishing House wouldn't appear in its list of acceptable publishers.

I'm not sure the BBC is a qualified definition of who IS or IS NOT qualified. Rather, they're simply trying to weed out the novice from the accomplished, and 'traditionally published' is a more restrictive guideline than 'anyone with a book for sale'. Their definition is probably left over from 20 or 30 years ago, rather than a definitive review of current publishing trends.

@red61544

Many people wouldn't consider a person who writes only for magazines or a newspaper a published author. They reserve that title for those who have published books.

I think we're being overly restrictive here. Again, we're talking 'published', not 'recognized as a best-selling novelist by the N.Y. Times'. Thus, yes, anyone 'published' in a major magazine (i.e. something you don't print in your basement with a memo machine or a $120 print) is a 'published author'). I'm not sure how you'd define a 'self-published magazine', as that's not really an accepted category.

This could easily become one of those endless discussions.

Now this I can agree with, as most of these distinctions are based on nothing more than random contests, random opinions, or random points of view.

As for the definition of 'writer', if you check the damn dictionary, anyone who can spell the alphabet is technically a 'writer'!

I'm not sure the BBC is a qualified definition of who IS or IS NOT qualified. Rather, they're simply trying to weed out the novice from the accomplished

The BBC's criteria are pretty much in line with other story competitions open only to published authors, although some don't specify a list of publishers but require the author to specify the details of who published their work and it's up to the competition holders to verify.

AJ

That leads to the question of what constitutes an author as opposed to a writer?

True, and 30 years ago the dividing line was closely watched by a bunch of gatekeepers at the print houses so you couldn't get your book out there before the public. No one had a way around that unless they paid to have the book printed themselves - the way Grisham did with his first book. However, with the Internet and self publishing it's now a lot easier to get your work out there before the public. The old gatekeepers are screaming hard to reserve the right to continue to be the arbitrators of what is and isn't allowed to be read by the public, but are rapidly losing ground.

Of course the gatekeepers want to continue to control the gate to have their power and income, but now they can be sidelined.

Are they writers or authors and what constitutes the difference?

That question is an integral and key part of the reason why I thought to start this thread.

True, but their being gate keepers is a different issue.

Many people wouldn't consider a person who writes only for magazines or a newspaper a published author. They reserve that title for those who have published books.

If you get published in a magazine, you're a published author. Now if it's a fly-by-night nothing of an online magazine, there's not much value in being published by them.

College professors have to be published in order to keep their jobs or tenure (I'm not in that field so I don't know the details). So they find a small publisher to publish their book. They're published. But the only sales they probably make is when they require the book be used in their class.

If you get published in a magazine, you're a published author.

I believe the BBC included a few highbrow magazines in their list.

I have to admit, when a 'writing-expert' blogger claims to be a published author, I check Amazon to see what books they've had published, and whether the publisher is reputable.

AJ

That leads to the question of what constitutes an author as opposed to a writer?

I would say a writer regurgitates facts in things like magazines and newspapers. Authors take an idea or concept adds imagination and generates a story.

If the author of a cookbook didn't stick to the facts, it could cause severe indigestion.

Biographers take facts and create an imaginative way to present them so they are entertaining. The same with non-fiction authors.

I consider cook books to be written by writers. They may be creative as cooks, but the writing isn't intended to be creative.

A story published on SOL does not carry the same prestige as being on the NYT best seller list.

It may not be prestigious, but I have read more on SOL (almost 1700 stories) than from the NYT BS list (Zero).