The Power to Publish

 

Photo courtesy Huffpost.com

Publishing is easy and instantaneous in the 21^st century. But that power bears enormous responsibility.

It’s a huge responsibility when you think about it. This new age of publishing is all about the freedom and the democratization of language. In place of the once speculative process of submitting our work in exchange for paid publication—a laborious process that can take weeks, months, and in some cases, years—we now have the power to publish complex thoughts, ideas, and stories, instantly. We choose to do this without contract, without direct payment in exchange for the adrenaline rush of publication. 

I once listened to a writing professor of mine announce to our humble workshop, “I lust publication.” His words hit home, even when I was starting out, and publication meant typing up a story, and sending it to a magazine via snail mail. Maybe you’d receive the coffee-stained story back in the mail three or four weeks later along with a form rejection letter, “Sorry but no dice.” Suddenly you’re back to where you started. Or hell, if that’s your twentieth rejection, maybe you just gave up and decided to drive a truck for a living. 

But now you don’t need the mail. You don’t need the publisher. You need your laptop and a place like Medium to publish whatever you want to write. Amazon KDP will publish your book, no questions asked. So will Kobo, Google, iBooks, and Barnes and Noble/Nook. ACX will record your audio. YouTube will make you a video star. Twitter will create scandal, for which you will become famous or infamous. Facebook and Instagram posts will make all your friends and colleagues jealous when you post pictures of your vacations and notices of your successes. Because no one ever posts pictures of their dirty toilet. No one ever posts news of their empty bank accounts. Or do they? 

Publishing in the new world order…The walls have been torn down, the gatekeepers removed, the barriers blown up. Writers (and that can anybody who calls him or herself a writer) now possess a tremendous amount of power. Imagine the enormous responsibility that comes with that power? 

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