Author Kristie Leigh Maguire Reflects on Self-Publishing

Kristie Leigh Maguire by Stan Tovrea

After I wrote the post, Will the Harlequin Controversy Affect Your Self-Publishing Route? award winning, self-published author, Kristie Leigh Maguire, provided this informative guest post.  She presents self-publishing from the author and publisher’s viewpoint.

Now perhaps the Harlequin authors (as well as other traditionally published authors), because of the controversy surrounding Harlequin’s decision to offer a self-publishing imprint, will realize the discrimination we self-published authors have known for years.

I am glad that this discrimination against self-published (or published by means not traditonal) authors has come out of the closet and is getting press. No matter what the type, discrimination is just plain wrong!

Just because some of us chose to go a different route in our writing and publishing careers does not mean we are not published and have not paid our dues. We have. Perhaps more so than the traditionally published authors because of the unfair discrimination we face every day when we chose to travel a different route than others do.

I have thought many times about joining RWA because romance writing is my game, and RWA is a well-known player in the game. However, why should I  join an organization that will not even recognize me as a published author because I chose to go my own route and self-publish instead of seeking traditional publishing through one of their “approved” publishers?

I am very much a published author and am very well known among my peers in the self-publishing field. I have won numerous awards including being voted the Best Up and Coming Romance Author of the Year, and my novel Desert Heat was voted Romance of the Year by the reader/writer poll at the Affaire de Coeur Magazine. My books have placed in the Top Ten in the Preditor & Editor Poll.

I even began a publishing house (Star Publish LLC) for other authors and built it into a very successful and well-known business that is respected among the non-traditional publishing houses. Star Publish LLC was successful beyond my wildest dreams. I ran it for over four years before I sold it in order to have time to pursue my own writing again. Star Publish LLC is still going strong under the leadership of its new owner, T.C. McMullen.

I would like to suggest that it is past time for the traditional publishing industry, and RWA, to realize that times are changing and for them to change with the times.  I only wish that Harlequin had not folded under pressure and changed the name of its self-publish arm from Harlequin Horizons to a name that does not have the Harlequin association in it at all.

What do you think about self-publishing vs. traditional? publishing?

(Incidentally, Star Publish LLC, is a home business, operated online from the owner’s and authors’  computers.)