The Self Publisher

(This essay was once the Introduction to my web page when I was advertising my own books.)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, who in my opinion is America's most important philosopher, once said in his Essays: First Series,”

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

Some of the more daunting challenges of self-publishing are that you have to be your own writer, editor, typesetter and publisher. In addition, to creating literary works, the self-publisher is burdened by publicity, marketing and bookkeeping. I am fortunate to have a wife who helps me in some of these chores.

Prior to POD publishing, making self-publishing affordable for almost anyone, I figured that none of my work would ever get beyond creative writing classes--where, back in the 1970s we classmates used to thrill one another with our politically incorrect efforts, innocently oblivious to the conformity nightmare with which most well-published writers have to contend. Reading and writing unedited stories by those who wear their hearts on their sleeves is as thrilling as reading a novel by Gogol (who invented wearing the heart on the writer's sleeve--he played a part in inspiring the current movie, Namesake, for which I recently wrote a review). Self-publishing, as well as creative writing classes, are exhilarating experiences that the general public can share only by digging beneath the obfuscation of the giant media and corporations that want to guide your reading habits (and maybe even your political thought processes).

Although I do not know anyone who writes racist or bigoted material, many writers are suppressed and constricted to narrow scopes of writing delineated by the "requirements" of each publisher. They all fear that they might offend some minority or ethnic group. This phenomenon was thematic in the movie, Amadeus, when the Austrian Holy Roman emperor, Joseph II, censored some of Mozart's best operas for fear of offending some of the multitudinous minority groups in the empire. Since I discovered POD publishing, I do not submit manuscripts to the "big" publishers anymore, but with the few that I did, years ago, I noticed that a common word used in rejection notices is that a work does not "fit" the needs of the publisher. While I was still in college I submitted to a literary agent a short, non-fiction story about a certain smuggling place along the border and described some of the clever methods used by smugglers of illegal aliens. The agent did not think he could sell the item, unless it was made a "human interest" story that told the story from the viewpoint of the illegal aliens. He indicated that he thought that I could not do that because I was "on the wrong side of the fence." That was in the early 1970s, and, to prove him wrong, I immediately sat down and wrote a 400-page novel told from the viewpoint of two illegal aliens. Although I sent a copy to the Library of Congress and registered it, I never published it. Nowadays, I would be disappointed if told I “fit” somewhere because of the connotation of conformity. Conformists can only write what’s been written before, but with just enough re-wording to keep them, and their publishers, from getting sued for plagiarism.

The above experience was my first exposure to the social thought that a story about smuggling, as told by an immigration officer, did not "fit" anywhere in the psyche of the American mind. I remember a lesson in creative writing where my instructor, Francis Fugate, author of Viewpoint: Key to Fiction Writing lectured the class on the trick to developing a sympathetic character, one the reader can identify with, or one the reader can become concerned about. He posed the image of an imaginary fistfight between himself and another professor. When you see a fight, what is the first reaction of the observer? I saw what he was getting at, for Americans always quickly side with the one they consider the underdog. Rooting for the underdog is a trait of nearly every American—unless he is mentally unbalanced, a sadist, or otherwise neurotic. However, in arguendo, I submit that Americans are often confused as to who the “underdog” really is.

As a career immigration officer, there is no way that I can consider an illegal alien an “underdog." The American social "deck" is stacked in his/her favor from apprehension, though the justice system to the rewards he/she gets for violating our immigration laws, as contrasted with the legal immigrants who abide by the rules and patiently await their turn for an immigrant visa. All nations have quotas on immigrants; if they didn't they could no longer have a national identity or patriotic citizens. The ancient Romans were the first to learn that unchecked immigration (they called it an invasion of barbarians) will lead to the destruction of a republic, or an empire. America is far from ready to accept the fact that the immigration officer is the real underdog in the battle to protect our borders. If his opponent were simply the illegal alien, his job would be easy; but the illegal alien is in alliance with every liberal, left-wing activist, unscrupulous employer of illegal aliens in the country, and probably most Congressmen, and certainly with President Obama. Consequently, the main battle I fought in my INS career was with the bureaucracy, which I consider abjectly corrupt, and battling that collective "villain" almost ruined my life. I was, and perhaps still am, unequivocally the underdog in that battle, but that is another story. My own advocacy had little impact; it was not until 9-11-01 that illegal immigration was first seen as a problem in this country. Even now, the public and the established government think the military, not immigration law enforcement, is the solution. The problem will never be solved until we have a national identity document, then we will never have to question the credentials of another worker—not even the President’s credentials.

Nowhere in the annals of American history have there been more lies, myths and anti-government propaganda promulgated by special interest groups than in the area of illegal immigration. Debunking them by proving that illegal aliens do not pay more into the economy than they take out in services is always ignored by the mainstream media. It does no good to illustrate how they insidiously break down our national, cultural values, our character and, indeed, our national fabric. Even if they did pay into the system more (in revenue) than they take out, they are still illegal, and tolerating them goes against the grain our cultural belief in the rule of law. However, the only profit of exploiting illegal aliens goes into the pockets of their unscrupulous employers. It is my belief, and I often illustrate, that continual toleration of illegal immigration will lead to anarchy and national chaos. I am not speaking of Hispanic Americans; in fact, I believe they are more the victim of illegal immigration than the rest of the population, and I value them as citizens; in fact, my wife is one. There are some employers who exploit illegal aliens that do not want to hire any Hispanic unless he/she is in the country illegally (only illegal aliens “fit” their agenda).

Now, back to the subject of writing, for which I also have a passion.

Although I do not depend on it for a living, I consider myself a professional writer, and I can write about any subject and assume any viewpoint. My most recent novel is a historical biography of Paula Maxwell, the girl whom Billy the Kid wanted to marry.

Political correctness in editing and publishing is, by no means, new. In fact it was once much worse, but we can revert to those times if we are not careful. One of the best novels ever written, Cervantes' Don Quixote, (which some claim is the first novel) had to be read by an official "censor" before publication. You can read Cervantes' censor's remarks in the middle pages of the unabridged versions. In those days of the Inquisition, writers had to walk a fine line, but Cervantes somehow managed to publish this story, which is a satire on the stagnation of classic literature--and, fortunately, he got it past the official censor. He did it by creating a pathetic, yet congenial, character that was a product of the Inquisition and State censorship, a character too ignorant to recognize the fish bowl existence of writers in the late Sixteenth Century. His protagonist, Don Quixote, a mentally unbalanced and delusional old man, revives his personal concept of the erstwhile knight errant who, "in days of old, when knights were bold," demonstrates and lives out his fascination with the old, stagnated heroic tales of medieval times, and makes a futile effort to reconcile his current experiences with those of the past. Don Quixote frequently quotes from such archaic sources as The Song Of Rolande. Cervantes does not tell us his protagonist has a brilliant, but warped mind; he leaves it to the reader to figure that out. Contemporary readers at the time that Don Quixote was published were aware that some two hundred years thence the armored knight and steed were made obsolete by the invention of gunpowder and the cannon. Before reading a historical novel, I recommend that the reader read the introduction and any critiques that are available. This will not destroy the story, for they are written discreetly. When the protagonist is seriously delusional, the reader is taken along for a ride like someone trying to make sense of a narration by Cantinflas, or one who, for a while, is sympathetic with Nabokov's Humberto Humberto. Vladimir Nabokov had a passion for “playing” with the reader, and that is one reason his work is mentally challenging. It might be said that a good novelist exploits the same human frailties that a psychopath, a slight of hand artist, or even a Ponzi scheme operator might.

The novelist develops characters who, if they were “normal,” would not make a good story. My story, That Zorro Guy, found in the “short story” index of this web site, is an example. Another example, which is worthy of only anecdotal treatment, came at a time when, as an INS criminal investigator, I was sent to Los Angeles' Sybil Brand female detention center to institute deportation proceedings against an Egyptian female named "Medusa Salaam." I departed headquarters wondering how any mother could name a child "Medusa," and after listening to her lies and dissembling efforts for a short time, I determined she was a black prostitute from East Texas. When I disappointed her by telling her I could not deport her to Egypt, she wanted to know if I could just put her on the next INS bus-lift to Tijuana! I began to suspect that she had a mean pimp she wanted to get rid of—maybe the one who was responsible for assigning her the street name, Medusa. I went back to the front office to check out before leaving the center and told them that the woman I had interviewed was a U.S. citizen (and therefore an LAPD, not INS, problem). The young lady psychologist who had interviewed her for sanity refused to admit she'd been been duped; to her, the young woman was still Egyptian, Medusa Salaam, not Ruby Mae Smith of Carthage, Texas! Psychologists would not understand the subtle ways that immigration officers have at getting to the truth with frauds. Nor can hardly anyone believe that immigration officers, not infrequently, encounter citizens who lie about being illegal aliens; but of course not as many as they encounter who falsely claim to be U.S. citizens. When I encountered a person I suspected of being a false claimer to illegal alienage, I often use what I called the qui vive approach to see if the person is really a loyal citizen of the country she claims. This approach is often necessary when, for example, a Latino from South America claims to be a Puerto Rican to avoid deportation. Used in tandem with the shibboleth (mispronunciation of a word common to a nationality that the speaker claims to be a member of), the qui vive is very effective. Since all illegal aliens are escorted to their countries’ consuls for an interview before being deported, they are not going to get past a consular officer who must issue them a provisional passport to re-enter their country. Nevertheless, much time (and embarrassment) is saved—for immigration immigration officers and consular officials alike—if the arresting officers can easily detect these frauds who are naïve enough to think they can scam the immigration authorities and get free transportation for a vacation in some foreign country.

One thing the above anecdote illustrates is that anyone can be a pretty good story-teller, and even an illiterate prostitute can do it, if they encounter a gullible listener. When it comes to fiction, having a reader, or a listener who is willing to suspend disbelief is essential, and what the skilled writer does is induce that willingness into the reader before he/she loses interest. It is probably the skill most emphasized in creative writing classes.

Some of Mark Twain's best satire has come to light only in recent years as his old manuscripts that were rejected by editors (when he was not self-publishing) have recently been published. A good example is his short story, The War Prayer, which can be viewed in its entirety (about 500 words, I'd guess) on several web sites by merely typing in Mark Twain's The War Prayer in your browser window. That story might be described as an expose' of religious fundamentalism and how the Old Testament scripture can be played against the New Testament to justify just about anything. Even today, those who oppose wars, even if only for economic reasons, like presidential candidate, Ron Paul, are called names (the old uninvited speaker at a war rally held at the church in Twain’s short story was later called a “lunatic” because, as one observer said, “…nothing he said made any sense…”).

In some ways, since Twain, and perhaps even since Cervantes, social conventions have changed for the better, but there is much pressure for more censorship from certain groups, particularly the fundamentalist religious groups that have in recent years begun to retrogress back toward where we were in the days of the Inquisition. Some, such as Rick Santorum, demand teaching “intelligent design” in “science” classes.

Some writers do not understand the concept of viewpoint and the many ways in which it is applied. I was fortunate to have the late Francis Fugate as my mentor in creative writing classes. He authored what I consider the best book ever on the subject of viewpoint, Viewpoint: Key to Fiction Writing, which we used in his class. Viewpoint goes much deeper than grammatical constructions; it is a necessary component of consistent characterization and depicting personality traits. He once told of receiving a phone call after midnight, and when he answered, he could hear a juke box and billiard balls clicking. In a drunken slur, a man asked, “This Fugate? “ Fugate responded, “Yes.” Then, without introduction or qualification, the caller asked, “Which is it, to who, or to whom?” Even drunks may argue about grammatical conventions, but viewpoint is a subject that goes much deeper. Some writers cannot avoid the colloquial even when narrating a novel using the the third person viewpoint. This is why any novelist narrating from any viewpoint, other than the first person, must have a basic knowledge of grammatical conventions, if he wants to be published. Francis Fugate once said that probably more manuscripts are rejected for “getting out of viewpoint” than for any other reason. Every character in a story has a different viewpoint, and their mode of speech in dialogue makes up part of their character traits.

I once thought that self-publishing was demeaning to a true artist's skills until I learned that these great authors self-published:

William Blake, Robbie Burns. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Samuel (Mark Twain) Clemens, Alexander Dumas, Zane Grey, James Joyce, Rudyard Kipling, D.H. Lawrence, Edgar Allen Poe, George Bernard Shaw, Henry David Thoreau, Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood, Tom Clancy, Stephen Crane, Wayne Dyer, Carl Sandburg....

That's company any writer can be proud to be a part of. I hope that other self-published writers will take heart. Understandably, self-published authors are scorned by the large, corporate book publishers, but they are not as oblivious as they might pretend to be. More and more good quality publishing is coming into print by self-publishers who do not want to undergo the humility of rejection and/or extensive editing for political correctness. If we are not getting their patronage, we are at least getting their attention.

(The above list of famous, self-published authors was compiled by the Trafford Publishing Company.)