Writers who Publish: Better than the Rest?

I’ve noticed something interesting happen when the word “published” is tagged to a writer’s list of accomplishments. “Published” often creates a lofty, slightly arrogant impression, but more than that, people suddenly take the writer seriously. Something else happens: the writer’s rates skyrocket.

Why?

Think about this for a minute. Why do we perceive someone who has published works as better than someone who hasn’t? Is that writer more competent? More skilled? More talented? Is an author with a published novel more liable to do a better job?

Absolutely not.

I’ll repeat that. Absolutely not.

We associate excellence with those whose works have achieved a published status most likely because of the rareness of the event, but a writer doesn’t have to be a good writer to be published.

There are some god-awful novels out there, trust me.

Print publishing is the luck of the draw. It isn’t winning the prize because the writing was so outstanding, in many cases. Unless you’re Stephen King or someone else just as famous, having anything published by a publishing house often occurs due to who you knew in the business, which person’s desk your material landed on, or whether you happened to be the lucky winner of the month.

Some fantastic works are never published because they just didn’t reach the right person. Some horrible material is published because it did.

It gets worse. A writer can pay to have his or her works published. That means a terrible novel can be published because someone had enough money. A writer can self publish, which means no one puts the work through a quality test. A writer can be the worst in the world, have someone else edit his or her works to perfection, and then publish the material.

This, of course, all refers to the world of print publishing. The definition of publishing, according to Cornell University, is making any information available to the public. Princeton claims publishing as preparing and issuing for public distribution. Wikipedia calls it putting information in the public arena.

This blog is a published work. The contents of my website are published. I could scribble a note on a sheet of paper, tack it to a lamppost, and claim I’ve published my writing.

The next time you’re browsing through proposals from writers, be careful about mental associations. “Published” often has very little to do with competency as a writer.