What would you consider published?

[Hello_Again]

@Edward_The_Head

I have to ask why you would say that. I can see if he’s some nut case printing odd stories or some such. However, what about the family historian? The one who does a lot of research but doesn’t care if he makes a penny.
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There’s no difference between the nut and the historian in terms of being published, only the merit of their writing. Published means someone other than you accepts your work in exchange for either money or prestige (as in the case of academic journals), including a process of evaluation in which you have the possibility of rejection.

[Silver_Tyger]

@Edward_The_Head

I have to ask why you would say that. I can see if he’s some nut case printing odd stories or some such. However, what about the family historian? The one who does a lot of research but doesn’t care if he makes a penny.

What Hello Again said. There are plenty of websites out there where people do tons and tons of research, or are incredibly entertaining, or whatever. They count the same as newsletters and zines. Unless somebody vets your work and decides it’s good enough to publish, it doesn’t count to me. (Something like Cracked is borderline - they get paid, they have editors, but… After reflection, I guess they count - there are a plenty of utterly crappy books that get published that are less worthwhile than the articles on Cracked.)

@JoelUpchurch

Do e-books count? Apparently there are some people making good money on publishing Kindle books.

E-books are books. They follow the same ‘rules’.

[CalMeacham]

@septimus

How about if I’ve received advances for published books, but the royalties and advances aggregate to less than I’d have made working minimum wage for the hours spent writing the books? :smack:

The royalties and advances aggregated for my book come out to about zero now. I’d do a helluva lot better at minimum wage.
But I’m undoubtedly published, by anyone’s definition.

[Edward_The_Head]

@Silver_Tyger

What Hello Again said. There are plenty of websites out there where people do tons and tons of research, or are incredibly entertaining, or whatever. They count the same as newsletters and zines. Unless somebody vets your work and decides it’s good enough to publish, it doesn’t count to me. (Something like Cracked is borderline - they get paid, they have editors, but… After reflection, I guess they count - there are a plenty of utterly crappy books that get published that are less worthwhile than the articles on Cracked.)

This is where I get confused then. If you say that Cracked is published simply because they get paid and have an editor, how is that different from the family historian that gets edited but does NOT get paid? How about the self published novelist that somehow gets a few thousand sold without an editor? It seems that most people say you need to be paid and edited. I guess I’ve seen enough smaller print stuff, especially family histories and such, that I don’t really think one needs to be paid to be published.

[Jonathan_Chance]

I’d hate to say ‘edited’ in there because that’s throwing a gatekeeper into the mix and currently the trend is to self-publish without the formal gatekeeper.

Would anyone say that Jeph Jacques, who writes the awesome webcomic Questionable Content, isn’t ‘published’? He has more than 100,000 readers per day. I’d wager one days readership exceed the amount of readership that 90+% of the books ever published.

And with the rise of Amazon and ebooks it’s easier than ever for a person with the dream to do the work and present it to the marketplace. 99% will suck, and not just a little, but they’re still publishing. They’re writing the work and putting it out there. I’d rather see that that some brilliant literary writer who has 20 brilliant novels but never sends them out for the public to see (I am thinking of a specific friend of mine who claims to be a writer and spends a lot of time at it but never shares with anyone).