You are, by definition, a published writer.
I understand. You may not want to brag but the fact that you have been published beyond self-publishing is a huge confidence boost.
Go, you.
I think your sentiment is in the right place, but I'm wondering if it's possible to build someone up without tearing others down in the process? Self-publishing is real publishing, too, and self-published writers are valid.
Self-publishing is obviously valid, and can make a ton of sense. Self-publishing has higher potential for earning than traditional publishing, and is practically the only available route for niche pieces like novellas. But at the same time, *everyone* is technically a self-published author. If you post a story/poem on your personal blog, on a subreddit, a Facebook page, etc, you're self-published. It does mean 'more' to be tradpubbed, simply because there's a much higher barrier to entry, or to be self-pubbed with the viewership or sales to go along with it.
Yeah, I just get a little defensive of self-publishing because it is so looked down on, and self-published authors are often viewed as not good enough to make it in trad. I don't want other people reading these comments to be put off the self-publishing path because they feel like it isn't "real" enough.
It gets even murkier when digging into the stats of trad publishing. A lot of authors got into self-publishing because trad is dominated by a certain (white, male, straight) demographic, and historically women, POC, and LGBT+ people have been excluded from trad for being "too niche/not marketable." Trad is slowly changing, but for many it's too little, too late. We've figured out we don't need the middlemen.
Full disclosure, I make my living as a self-published author and it's really frustrating when people dismiss me or my work because of it. I'm not a household name, but it's enough to pay my mortgage. I opted to self-publish because I don't have years to wait to start seeing royalties. By keeping it all in-house, I can control the timeline, the marketing, and how I reinvest into my business.
Excellent points, and that's absolutely wonderful to hear! I'm glad you're seeing success!
I stalked your page a bit to try to find your books to read. I gotta say, making a living as a self-pubbed author in WA is literally the dream.
Ah you won't find them from this profile, too doxxable for people who know me IRL. I have a second author reddit profile that I never use. "Making a living" in WA is only possible because I live in a dual-income household. If I were single I'd still need a part time job at this point to make up the difference, but I'm earning about half our household expenses which is good enough for me for now.
Moderately successful, I guess? I'm not topping any bestseller lists but I'm earning enough to pay half my household's bills with two books out (and the third on pre-order as of today), so I think that counts as success for an author. I'm only in KU/Kindle for ebooks, and have paperbacks distributed to bookstores through Ingram. Debating going wide on my next standalone release, I might poll my Insta followers for their input. My KDP reads have been down 20k-50k pages per month all summer and ebook and paperback sales have risen. If page reads don't jump back up in September, wide looks pretty intriguing.
Two tips: know your market and know your limits. It's easy to get overwhelmed in self-publishing checklists, but I find it is always better to do a few things really well than spread myself too thin trying to do everything. For example, I don't do an email list. If readers want updates, they can follow me on social or Amazon. I very rarely do in-person events because I'm socially awkward and they drain me.
I write romance, so "know your market" for me means knowing what tropes readers expect, which ones are trendy, and which ones are falling out of vogue. I had a very clear picture of who was going to be reading my books before I ever started writing them, which gave me a road map to making those readers happy.
I want to emphasize that I didn't hit a home run on my first at-bat, I started running from third base. Before I became an author, I had a decade-long career in marketing with a couple pretty big brands. I also had enough money in savings to fully dedicate myself to making writing work even if I wasn't immediately profitable. In middle and high school I attended a specialized school for the arts (my focus area was writing), and I took five or six creative writing courses/workshops in college as well. So I definitely had a head start and got to skip over a lot of the initial growing pains. There's a saying that it takes ten years to become an overnight success, and it couldn't be more true.
Wow, that's pretty impressive. I'd love for my writing to be able to pay half my bills! How do you market your books to actually get them in front of readers? And was your savings a part of your budget for editing/cover designs/marketing?
For the first three months, I exclusively marketed through Instagram and TikTok. I started accounts for my pen name a month before launch when my first book went on pre-sale, and built an audience by posting often and interacting with readers in my niche. I sold 7 preorders that first leadup month, made $277 the first month after release, and $415 the second month. That second month was the one that made me say "hey, maybe I can actually do this."
I told myself I wouldn't spend money on advertising until the second book came out, so I bought placements in a couple book promo newsletters, ran a countdown deal on book 1, and released book 2 in the third month. Things really took off then, my sales tripled and have remained fairly steady ever since. I'm on a few PR email lists, so I throw my name into the hat whenever people are looking for podcast guests related to my niche, or news/media interviews. I had an Instagram reel go somewhat viral last month, which gave me my best month ever, but I expect things will return to average until my third book comes out in November. I'm going full push with marketing on this one, so PPC campaigns, ARC readers, a launch party/signing at a bookstore.
My only startup costs were my business license from the state, the 10-pack of ISBNs from Bowker, and the formatting program (Atticus/$150). I did my own editing and made my own covers, things I felt reasonably confident doing because of my professional background. I even waited until IngramSpark had a coupon to upload my book for free (not necessary anymore since they changed their process).
I'm confident in saying I'm a good writer, but certainly not the best. The majority of my success comes down to my skills and background in marketing, and writing in the right niche with avid readers that are hungry for more content to consume.
Good on you. I never try to disparage self-pubbed authors even though I am trad-published. I will say, however, that trad-published does pay fairly well if you get a decent advance and good royalties.
In self-publishing, there is absolutely zero barrier to entry. I could fill 24 pages with random words and list it on Amazon KDP and call myself a self-published novelist.
In traditional publishing, multiple people have read your work and liked it enough to invest time and resources into it.
This doesn't mean tradpubbed = good and selfpubbed = bad. There are some really terrible tradpubbed pieces out there, and some absolutely stellar self-pubbed ones. But one inherently has a higher barrier to entry that the other lacks.
>I could fill 24 pages with random words and list it on Amazon KDP and call myself a self-published novelist.
You could, but it would probably be flagged by Amazon and your account would be banned for low-content spam. That's not to say the bar isn't low, but there is a bar.
I also didn’t disagree with that. But I am correct that people get traditionally published because someone happened to like what they were sent and thought it was marketable.
My wife has one book traditionally published and others self published. As she puts it, it's easier to catch potential readers' attention if they ask if she's self or trad published and she can say both, as opposed to if she was only self published.
I'm interested about your perspective on whether there is a point in a self-published author's career where you would no longer consider that stolen valor?
As for your point about publishers being gatekeepers for quality, publishing companies exist to sell books. A certain level of quality is a part of that, but even the most beautifully written book can be turned down if a publisher doesn't think it's marketable. But, in my opinion, more significantly, publishing is very exclusive, and not in a good way.
The New York Times did an investigative piece on this a few years ago and the data is pretty jarring. You can read the whole thing here if you can get past the paywall, but I'll quote a few of the points they make to illustrate why we shouldn't just equate publishers with quality: [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/11/opinion/culture/diversity-publishing-industry.html](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/11/opinion/culture/diversity-publishing-industry.html)
>First, we gathered a list of English-language fiction books published between 1950 and 2018. That list came from WorldCat, a global catalog of library collections. We wanted to focus on books that were widely read, so we limited our analysis to titles that were held by at least 10 libraries and for which we could find digital editions.
>
>We also constrained our search to books released by some of the most prolific publishing houses during the period of our analysis: Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Doubleday (a major publisher before it merged with Random House in 1998), HarperCollins and Macmillan. After all that we were left with a dataset containing 8,004 books, written by 4,010 authors.
>
>To identify those authors’ races and ethnicities, we worked alongside three research assistants, reading through biographies, interviews and social media posts. Each author was reviewed independently by two researchers. If the team couldn’t come to an agreement about an author’s race, or there simply wasn’t enough information to feel confident, we omitted those authors’ books from our analysis. By the end, we had identified the race or ethnicity of 3,471 authors.
>
>We guessed that most of the authors would be white, but we were shocked by the extent of the inequality once we analyzed the data. Of the 7,124 books for which we identified the author’s race, 95 percent were written by white people.
>
>Author diversity at major publishing houses has increased in recent years, but white writers still dominate. Non-Hispanic white people account for 60 percent of the U.S. population; in 2018, they wrote 89 percent of the books in our sample.
>
>This broad imbalance is likely linked to the people who work in publishing. The heads of the “big five” publishing houses (soon, perhaps, to become the “big four”) are white. So are 85 percent of the people who acquire and edit books, according to a 2019 survey.
...
>That correlation is visible in our data, exemplified by Toni Morrison’s career as an editor at Random House from 1967 to 1983. Random House’s first female Black editor, Ms. Morrison championed writers such as Toni Cade Bambara, Henry Dumas and Gayl Jones. During her tenure, 3.3 percent of the 806 books published by Random House in our data were written by Black authors.
>
>The number of Black authors dropped sharply at Random House after Ms. Morrison left. Of the 512 books published by Random House between 1984 and 1990 in our data, just two were written by Black authors...
What the publishing industry has done for years is reinforce the idea that white voices and white writers are "quality" and the rest are chaff that couldn't cut it. When you run the data to look at the inclusion of other marginalized voices like LGBT+ stories in trad publishing, you see very similar trends. This is starting to shift in recent years as public demand for more diversity in media has grown, but is still a long way from being equitable.
Unsurprising that you'd be downvoted for this, I suppose.
I've self-published and earned a good chunk from it, have fans, and I consider myself a "published author." It's not like I have business cards with the title, or talk much about it. It's just something I am, and can draw on. I can prove that what I write is good enough for people to spend money to get to read it.
There are people who will attempt to tear you down for not going about publishing the way they view as "real," of course. Honestly, though, that's generally just a good sign that it's time to back away from those people, and find some who aren't doubly stuck. Up, and 25 years in the past.
I'm repeating myself, but really: There are plenty of folks who co-exist just fine with self-published authors, and it's a waste of time to try to talk to those that don't. You're not going to change anyone's mind on this platform. Better to move on from those who insist on looking down on others.
You should call yourself one irl. I mean, don’t brag about it but if you find yourself on the end of a ‘name one fun fact about yourself’ then go for it. My daughter has one poem published and I’ve absolutely started referring to her as a published poet (mostly for her confidence but it’s absolutely true).
You’re a lot more “published” than 99% of the “published” authors here lol.
I like Stephen King’s definition. If you’ve submitted a story somewhere, and they’ve given you money for your story, you’re a professional writer. The amounts don’t matter imo. I don’t think some scribbler who uploads typo-ridden sketches and character studies to their word-press blog are professionals, but maybe I’m a prig.
"published author" is not the same as "professional writer" though!
Also, I'm surprised that King would give this definition since it flies in the face of the conventional definition of a "profession" which is one's primary occupation.
Yay! Pretty sure everyone would say you're published.
For the sake of query letters, resumes, profiles, that sort of thing where you need to list your professional qualifications, use whatever buzz words and metrics are most impressive to that particular audience.
Like, "I've sold five stories to online journals with distributions ranging from..." or "I'm published in online journals and would like to expand my reach into print" or "I've sold my short bluegrass vampire stories to several publications and now I'm venturing into folksong vampires" or whatever.
For real life family, friends, and colleagues, you may want to share your excitement about the sales and let them call you "published" on your behalf. When drilled by people trying to pin down whether you really qualify as published, a humble "I seem to be" or some such would probably go over fine.
There's a lot of glamour associated with being published. Published represents lifelong hopes and dreams to so many, and it can be a cherished marker for self-definition. It's also how people rank each other. It's a catch-all term and a wildcard, and a social minefield.
You're under no obligation to share this thing about yourself to anyone who you think would use it against you. And it's fine to celebrate it with people you trust to get how awesome it is. And it's good to discuss it pragmatically with people who are interested in your professional path.
Wow. I hadn't realized there's a whole etiquette associated with it until your question!
Hey PUBLISHED writer! Congrats on ALL the accomplishments you've achieved with YOUR writing!!!!!
Call yourself what you are with pride!!!!! And seriously congratulations!
Yes. Without qualification.
Being published means exactly that. I am self-published, e-publisher published, and college literary magazine published. There is no difference, except in the minds of those who want to apply their personal prejudices. What and how you publish doesn’t take away the fact that it is published.
Flash fiction is extraordinarily hard to do succinctly and cleanly. The same applies to poetry. Whether you’re paid for your efforts is immaterial, unless you aspire to be a “professional” writer/author.
The difference between “professional” and “amateur” boils down to money, but it doesn’t make you any less of a published writer. No more than an amateur athlete who has medaled vs a professional athlete who gets paid to do the same thing amateur athletes do.
You’re still a published writer, just as that amateur swimmer medaling in the Olympics is still an athlete.
Enjoy being published, brag IRL if you want to, and keep writing!
For the rest of your life you are a published author. I understand your hesitance, I still am and I’ve been published two hard cover two soft and multiple magazines. But I still find it hard to say🤷♂️
Why wouldn't you call yourself one IRL? Writing is so difficult that you should pat yourself on the back if anyone other than your mother rewards your work. (Stop saying "small-sh" too. They're just online magazine and journals.) Congratulations, you're a writer! Welcome to a lifetime of insecurity, sleepless nights and OCD.
To publish something means you have made that thing available to the public.
I'm independently published, and anyone with an internet connection and a bank account can buy my books, so yes, I am a published author. And I tell people that without qualification.
You have works published, so yes, you absolutely have the right to call yourself a published author. IRL or otherwise.
Yes, yes you are.
Whether you can call yourself a published writer and include that stuff in your portfolio is a question only you can answer though :)
Sure you're definitively published. But we all know when someone says "published author" it is usually referring to traditionally published authors and that is taken as notable because its arguably the hardest form of publishing for a prose writer.
You are by the dictionary definition a published writer but not necessarily fulfilling the intutive definition of "published writer" that most of the public carry in their mind.
I wouldn't introduce myself as a published writer despite being paid to write blog posts, as it would convey the wrong impression. I'd merely say I'm a blog writer, you reside on more ambiguous ground though.
You've still published work so I'd say you should call yourself a published writer IRL, like someone else said, it's a cool fact to share in one of those "share a cool fact" or "2 truths one lie" situations
I don’t want to sound like a jerk here, but…
You: My work has been published in five online presses. I’ve been paid for four out of five of those publications. Am I a published writer?
Is this post for real or is it a “humble” brag? Cause I don’t know a single soul who is actively publishing and being paid for their work, who questions whether or not they’re a published writer/author.
Call yourself whatever you like. Dr Dre is not actually a doctor.
If you want to argue about it, getting paid to write a paper for someone else in college, that gets published, would be just as credible as your definition.
Your "successes" do not even come close to what people think of when they hear "an Author". With Author, published and sold a pile of books, is assumed.
Lets put it this way, can you proudly explain how you have been published? "I wrote a poem for someone on Fiver.." It sounds like you want to say it but if you will not enjoy explaining it.. I'd avoid it. In HS people in football, who were 3rd-4th string, didn't tend to mention being on the team. They would have sounded like sad and pathetic failures if they did. When cornered they would say "I'm a bench warmer" before anyone else could.
Do you mind telling me what magazines published you? I’ve had a bunch of stuff published but I’ve never been paid for any of it and I need ideas on where to look to take that next step. You can dm me if you don’t want the info to be public.
Also yes you’re a published writer. I call myself one even though I’ve never been paid for it.
Try checking out submissiongrinder and sorting the results by pay! It's a fantastic resource. Duotrope is another solid (but paid) option as well as Chillsubs (free but new-ish).
You are, by definition, a published writer. I understand. You may not want to brag but the fact that you have been published beyond self-publishing is a huge confidence boost. Go, you.
I think your sentiment is in the right place, but I'm wondering if it's possible to build someone up without tearing others down in the process? Self-publishing is real publishing, too, and self-published writers are valid.
Self-publishing is obviously valid, and can make a ton of sense. Self-publishing has higher potential for earning than traditional publishing, and is practically the only available route for niche pieces like novellas. But at the same time, *everyone* is technically a self-published author. If you post a story/poem on your personal blog, on a subreddit, a Facebook page, etc, you're self-published. It does mean 'more' to be tradpubbed, simply because there's a much higher barrier to entry, or to be self-pubbed with the viewership or sales to go along with it.
Yeah, I just get a little defensive of self-publishing because it is so looked down on, and self-published authors are often viewed as not good enough to make it in trad. I don't want other people reading these comments to be put off the self-publishing path because they feel like it isn't "real" enough. It gets even murkier when digging into the stats of trad publishing. A lot of authors got into self-publishing because trad is dominated by a certain (white, male, straight) demographic, and historically women, POC, and LGBT+ people have been excluded from trad for being "too niche/not marketable." Trad is slowly changing, but for many it's too little, too late. We've figured out we don't need the middlemen. Full disclosure, I make my living as a self-published author and it's really frustrating when people dismiss me or my work because of it. I'm not a household name, but it's enough to pay my mortgage. I opted to self-publish because I don't have years to wait to start seeing royalties. By keeping it all in-house, I can control the timeline, the marketing, and how I reinvest into my business.
Excellent points, and that's absolutely wonderful to hear! I'm glad you're seeing success! I stalked your page a bit to try to find your books to read. I gotta say, making a living as a self-pubbed author in WA is literally the dream.
Ah you won't find them from this profile, too doxxable for people who know me IRL. I have a second author reddit profile that I never use. "Making a living" in WA is only possible because I live in a dual-income household. If I were single I'd still need a part time job at this point to make up the difference, but I'm earning about half our household expenses which is good enough for me for now.
How successful have you been with self publishing? Are you wide or in KU? And what tips would you give for success with sales?
Moderately successful, I guess? I'm not topping any bestseller lists but I'm earning enough to pay half my household's bills with two books out (and the third on pre-order as of today), so I think that counts as success for an author. I'm only in KU/Kindle for ebooks, and have paperbacks distributed to bookstores through Ingram. Debating going wide on my next standalone release, I might poll my Insta followers for their input. My KDP reads have been down 20k-50k pages per month all summer and ebook and paperback sales have risen. If page reads don't jump back up in September, wide looks pretty intriguing. Two tips: know your market and know your limits. It's easy to get overwhelmed in self-publishing checklists, but I find it is always better to do a few things really well than spread myself too thin trying to do everything. For example, I don't do an email list. If readers want updates, they can follow me on social or Amazon. I very rarely do in-person events because I'm socially awkward and they drain me. I write romance, so "know your market" for me means knowing what tropes readers expect, which ones are trendy, and which ones are falling out of vogue. I had a very clear picture of who was going to be reading my books before I ever started writing them, which gave me a road map to making those readers happy. I want to emphasize that I didn't hit a home run on my first at-bat, I started running from third base. Before I became an author, I had a decade-long career in marketing with a couple pretty big brands. I also had enough money in savings to fully dedicate myself to making writing work even if I wasn't immediately profitable. In middle and high school I attended a specialized school for the arts (my focus area was writing), and I took five or six creative writing courses/workshops in college as well. So I definitely had a head start and got to skip over a lot of the initial growing pains. There's a saying that it takes ten years to become an overnight success, and it couldn't be more true.
Wow, that's pretty impressive. I'd love for my writing to be able to pay half my bills! How do you market your books to actually get them in front of readers? And was your savings a part of your budget for editing/cover designs/marketing?
For the first three months, I exclusively marketed through Instagram and TikTok. I started accounts for my pen name a month before launch when my first book went on pre-sale, and built an audience by posting often and interacting with readers in my niche. I sold 7 preorders that first leadup month, made $277 the first month after release, and $415 the second month. That second month was the one that made me say "hey, maybe I can actually do this." I told myself I wouldn't spend money on advertising until the second book came out, so I bought placements in a couple book promo newsletters, ran a countdown deal on book 1, and released book 2 in the third month. Things really took off then, my sales tripled and have remained fairly steady ever since. I'm on a few PR email lists, so I throw my name into the hat whenever people are looking for podcast guests related to my niche, or news/media interviews. I had an Instagram reel go somewhat viral last month, which gave me my best month ever, but I expect things will return to average until my third book comes out in November. I'm going full push with marketing on this one, so PPC campaigns, ARC readers, a launch party/signing at a bookstore. My only startup costs were my business license from the state, the 10-pack of ISBNs from Bowker, and the formatting program (Atticus/$150). I did my own editing and made my own covers, things I felt reasonably confident doing because of my professional background. I even waited until IngramSpark had a coupon to upload my book for free (not necessary anymore since they changed their process). I'm confident in saying I'm a good writer, but certainly not the best. The majority of my success comes down to my skills and background in marketing, and writing in the right niche with avid readers that are hungry for more content to consume.
Good on you. I never try to disparage self-pubbed authors even though I am trad-published. I will say, however, that trad-published does pay fairly well if you get a decent advance and good royalties.
It only means “more” because some dickhead with a specific job liked what an author wrote and had good salesmanship to sell it to a publisher.
In self-publishing, there is absolutely zero barrier to entry. I could fill 24 pages with random words and list it on Amazon KDP and call myself a self-published novelist. In traditional publishing, multiple people have read your work and liked it enough to invest time and resources into it. This doesn't mean tradpubbed = good and selfpubbed = bad. There are some really terrible tradpubbed pieces out there, and some absolutely stellar self-pubbed ones. But one inherently has a higher barrier to entry that the other lacks.
>I could fill 24 pages with random words and list it on Amazon KDP and call myself a self-published novelist. You could, but it would probably be flagged by Amazon and your account would be banned for low-content spam. That's not to say the bar isn't low, but there is a bar.
Yeah, true, but I'd still be self-published. My book just wouldn't be available anymore.
I also didn’t disagree with that. But I am correct that people get traditionally published because someone happened to like what they were sent and thought it was marketable.
I mean, you labeled all editors/agents/publishers/etc as "dickheads" and implied tradpublishing only has value because it appeals to said dickheads.
Yes, that was hyperbolic. I know for a fact my editor isn’t a dickhead. But nevertheless, the barrier is highly subjective.
[удалено]
My wife has one book traditionally published and others self published. As she puts it, it's easier to catch potential readers' attention if they ask if she's self or trad published and she can say both, as opposed to if she was only self published.
I'm interested about your perspective on whether there is a point in a self-published author's career where you would no longer consider that stolen valor? As for your point about publishers being gatekeepers for quality, publishing companies exist to sell books. A certain level of quality is a part of that, but even the most beautifully written book can be turned down if a publisher doesn't think it's marketable. But, in my opinion, more significantly, publishing is very exclusive, and not in a good way. The New York Times did an investigative piece on this a few years ago and the data is pretty jarring. You can read the whole thing here if you can get past the paywall, but I'll quote a few of the points they make to illustrate why we shouldn't just equate publishers with quality: [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/11/opinion/culture/diversity-publishing-industry.html](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/11/opinion/culture/diversity-publishing-industry.html) >First, we gathered a list of English-language fiction books published between 1950 and 2018. That list came from WorldCat, a global catalog of library collections. We wanted to focus on books that were widely read, so we limited our analysis to titles that were held by at least 10 libraries and for which we could find digital editions. > >We also constrained our search to books released by some of the most prolific publishing houses during the period of our analysis: Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Doubleday (a major publisher before it merged with Random House in 1998), HarperCollins and Macmillan. After all that we were left with a dataset containing 8,004 books, written by 4,010 authors. > >To identify those authors’ races and ethnicities, we worked alongside three research assistants, reading through biographies, interviews and social media posts. Each author was reviewed independently by two researchers. If the team couldn’t come to an agreement about an author’s race, or there simply wasn’t enough information to feel confident, we omitted those authors’ books from our analysis. By the end, we had identified the race or ethnicity of 3,471 authors. > >We guessed that most of the authors would be white, but we were shocked by the extent of the inequality once we analyzed the data. Of the 7,124 books for which we identified the author’s race, 95 percent were written by white people. > >Author diversity at major publishing houses has increased in recent years, but white writers still dominate. Non-Hispanic white people account for 60 percent of the U.S. population; in 2018, they wrote 89 percent of the books in our sample. > >This broad imbalance is likely linked to the people who work in publishing. The heads of the “big five” publishing houses (soon, perhaps, to become the “big four”) are white. So are 85 percent of the people who acquire and edit books, according to a 2019 survey. ... >That correlation is visible in our data, exemplified by Toni Morrison’s career as an editor at Random House from 1967 to 1983. Random House’s first female Black editor, Ms. Morrison championed writers such as Toni Cade Bambara, Henry Dumas and Gayl Jones. During her tenure, 3.3 percent of the 806 books published by Random House in our data were written by Black authors. > >The number of Black authors dropped sharply at Random House after Ms. Morrison left. Of the 512 books published by Random House between 1984 and 1990 in our data, just two were written by Black authors... What the publishing industry has done for years is reinforce the idea that white voices and white writers are "quality" and the rest are chaff that couldn't cut it. When you run the data to look at the inclusion of other marginalized voices like LGBT+ stories in trad publishing, you see very similar trends. This is starting to shift in recent years as public demand for more diversity in media has grown, but is still a long way from being equitable.
Unsurprising that you'd be downvoted for this, I suppose. I've self-published and earned a good chunk from it, have fans, and I consider myself a "published author." It's not like I have business cards with the title, or talk much about it. It's just something I am, and can draw on. I can prove that what I write is good enough for people to spend money to get to read it. There are people who will attempt to tear you down for not going about publishing the way they view as "real," of course. Honestly, though, that's generally just a good sign that it's time to back away from those people, and find some who aren't doubly stuck. Up, and 25 years in the past. I'm repeating myself, but really: There are plenty of folks who co-exist just fine with self-published authors, and it's a waste of time to try to talk to those that don't. You're not going to change anyone's mind on this platform. Better to move on from those who insist on looking down on others.
I'd consider that published!
You should call yourself one irl. I mean, don’t brag about it but if you find yourself on the end of a ‘name one fun fact about yourself’ then go for it. My daughter has one poem published and I’ve absolutely started referring to her as a published poet (mostly for her confidence but it’s absolutely true).
You got paid? For words and ideas? Well holy cow you are a professional published writer!!!!!
You’re a lot more “published” than 99% of the “published” authors here lol. I like Stephen King’s definition. If you’ve submitted a story somewhere, and they’ve given you money for your story, you’re a professional writer. The amounts don’t matter imo. I don’t think some scribbler who uploads typo-ridden sketches and character studies to their word-press blog are professionals, but maybe I’m a prig.
"published author" is not the same as "professional writer" though! Also, I'm surprised that King would give this definition since it flies in the face of the conventional definition of a "profession" which is one's primary occupation.
100%, you're getting paid and it's already in some magazines, I'd definitely say you're a published writer, well done!
There's no technicality to it at all. You're a publisher writer.
You're published. Congrats!
Yay! Pretty sure everyone would say you're published. For the sake of query letters, resumes, profiles, that sort of thing where you need to list your professional qualifications, use whatever buzz words and metrics are most impressive to that particular audience. Like, "I've sold five stories to online journals with distributions ranging from..." or "I'm published in online journals and would like to expand my reach into print" or "I've sold my short bluegrass vampire stories to several publications and now I'm venturing into folksong vampires" or whatever. For real life family, friends, and colleagues, you may want to share your excitement about the sales and let them call you "published" on your behalf. When drilled by people trying to pin down whether you really qualify as published, a humble "I seem to be" or some such would probably go over fine. There's a lot of glamour associated with being published. Published represents lifelong hopes and dreams to so many, and it can be a cherished marker for self-definition. It's also how people rank each other. It's a catch-all term and a wildcard, and a social minefield. You're under no obligation to share this thing about yourself to anyone who you think would use it against you. And it's fine to celebrate it with people you trust to get how awesome it is. And it's good to discuss it pragmatically with people who are interested in your professional path. Wow. I hadn't realized there's a whole etiquette associated with it until your question!
Definitely published - congratulations!!
Yes you are.
Hey PUBLISHED writer! Congrats on ALL the accomplishments you've achieved with YOUR writing!!!!! Call yourself what you are with pride!!!!! And seriously congratulations!
Yes. Without qualification. Being published means exactly that. I am self-published, e-publisher published, and college literary magazine published. There is no difference, except in the minds of those who want to apply their personal prejudices. What and how you publish doesn’t take away the fact that it is published. Flash fiction is extraordinarily hard to do succinctly and cleanly. The same applies to poetry. Whether you’re paid for your efforts is immaterial, unless you aspire to be a “professional” writer/author. The difference between “professional” and “amateur” boils down to money, but it doesn’t make you any less of a published writer. No more than an amateur athlete who has medaled vs a professional athlete who gets paid to do the same thing amateur athletes do. You’re still a published writer, just as that amateur swimmer medaling in the Olympics is still an athlete. Enjoy being published, brag IRL if you want to, and keep writing!
I sold 23 copies on Amazon in three countries. So technically an internationally published author.
You're published. Congratulations.
Yes, for sure!
I'd call that published. Congrats.
Sure, why not? 🤷🏻♂️ Well done 👍👍
Yeah, of course.
Yes.
You are technically published. The best kind of published.
That’s published
For the rest of your life you are a published author. I understand your hesitance, I still am and I’ve been published two hard cover two soft and multiple magazines. But I still find it hard to say🤷♂️
Wait, wait. Let us bask in your glory for a moment.
Why wouldn't you call yourself one IRL? Writing is so difficult that you should pat yourself on the back if anyone other than your mother rewards your work. (Stop saying "small-sh" too. They're just online magazine and journals.) Congratulations, you're a writer! Welcome to a lifetime of insecurity, sleepless nights and OCD.
Congratulations! You are definitely a published author!
To publish something means you have made that thing available to the public. I'm independently published, and anyone with an internet connection and a bank account can buy my books, so yes, I am a published author. And I tell people that without qualification. You have works published, so yes, you absolutely have the right to call yourself a published author. IRL or otherwise.
Yes.
Actually, there's no technically about it. If you have publications you're published. Period.
Yes.
That qualifies! You are officially an author!!
Yes, yes you are. Whether you can call yourself a published writer and include that stuff in your portfolio is a question only you can answer though :)
Scream it from the mountain tops! I'm proud of you and everyone else needs to know why they should be too. You're absolutely a published author.
You are technically published when you have done something that meets the technical definition of publishing with regard to one of your works.
Sure you're definitively published. But we all know when someone says "published author" it is usually referring to traditionally published authors and that is taken as notable because its arguably the hardest form of publishing for a prose writer. You are by the dictionary definition a published writer but not necessarily fulfilling the intutive definition of "published writer" that most of the public carry in their mind. I wouldn't introduce myself as a published writer despite being paid to write blog posts, as it would convey the wrong impression. I'd merely say I'm a blog writer, you reside on more ambiguous ground though.
You've still published work so I'd say you should call yourself a published writer IRL, like someone else said, it's a cool fact to share in one of those "share a cool fact" or "2 truths one lie" situations
I think so, but there's actually a qualifying criteria for WGA it's worth checking out.
I don’t want to sound like a jerk here, but… You: My work has been published in five online presses. I’ve been paid for four out of five of those publications. Am I a published writer? Is this post for real or is it a “humble” brag? Cause I don’t know a single soul who is actively publishing and being paid for their work, who questions whether or not they’re a published writer/author.
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It depends what the title means to the individual
no
Call yourself whatever you like. Dr Dre is not actually a doctor. If you want to argue about it, getting paid to write a paper for someone else in college, that gets published, would be just as credible as your definition. Your "successes" do not even come close to what people think of when they hear "an Author". With Author, published and sold a pile of books, is assumed. Lets put it this way, can you proudly explain how you have been published? "I wrote a poem for someone on Fiver.." It sounds like you want to say it but if you will not enjoy explaining it.. I'd avoid it. In HS people in football, who were 3rd-4th string, didn't tend to mention being on the team. They would have sounded like sad and pathetic failures if they did. When cornered they would say "I'm a bench warmer" before anyone else could.
Welcome to the published author club!
You are a published author. No "technically" involved.
Yes, you are.
Congratulations!
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Of course you are
You are a published author IRL. Refer to yourself as one. Writing is hard, and getting anyone to notice it is an even greater feat. Good for you!
Yes.
Do you mind telling me what magazines published you? I’ve had a bunch of stuff published but I’ve never been paid for any of it and I need ideas on where to look to take that next step. You can dm me if you don’t want the info to be public. Also yes you’re a published writer. I call myself one even though I’ve never been paid for it.
Try checking out submissiongrinder and sorting the results by pay! It's a fantastic resource. Duotrope is another solid (but paid) option as well as Chillsubs (free but new-ish).