The Horn Book website was alight last month with a discussion of self-
publishing books for children. It began when I posted my thoughts on the subject in response to an email I received querying our policy of not reviewing books written and published by the same person. Like most good discussions, it was both heated and informative, and you can read the whole thing here.

Self-publishing is certainly far from the days of the now-closed Vantage Press, leader of the pack of vanity presses who charged authors a fee to publish their books (aren’t the authors the ones supposed to be getting paid?) and who peppered review journals with copies of books that in a just world would have remained unsent, if not unwritten. You didn’t even have to open one to know it for what it was; the cheap binding and cheaper book jacket announced its provenance loudly. I’m sure these presses had no expectation of getting reviews; mailing us their books was simply cover for them with any authors curious about what kind of “marketing,” promised in the pricey contract, they were getting.

It’s a different world now. While much of what I see of self-publishing for children remains almost unfathomably clueless, there is a lot more range now, in production values, quality of writing, and sense of a market. But there is simply a lot more now, too, far more than we can even quietly dispose of in a systematic way. And given that there must be a pony, how do we find it? I’m open to suggestions.

What this discussion has given me more than anything is an understanding of the part publishing plays in turning manuscripts into books. It’s more than mechanical and financial. It means there is someone to say no. No, or “not yet,” or “try this instead,” or “I’ve seen better from you.” It is true that self-publishers of both kids’ and adult books now frequently employ freelance editors, designers, illustrators, marketers, etc. But when the author is the one paying all of these people, the best interests of the book will not inevitably prevail. As Molly Idle, author-illustrator of Flora and the Penguin, reviewed on page 70, said in a recent Talks with Roger interview, “It’s a collaborative process, making books. It would be so easy to keep hold of this little idea that is precious to you. But in sharing it, collaborating with editors and art directors, it becomes something even more. And hopefully better than you could ever have come up with if you had just kept it all to yourself.”

We don’t need to idealize publishing — which in fact doesn’t say no as often as it should — to understand the value of an institution that brings writers and illustrators not just into cooperation with talented book-makers but into communion with a great heritage. Whether Coraline or Carolyn Keene, that heritage has been nurtured by the Horn Book for ninety years now. In the spirited and smart, if largely self-interested, comments from self-publishers that followed my post, I saw passion and hard work but also writers working largely in ignorance of a great tradition. How can we make them part of the family?

From the November/December issue of The Horn Book Magazine.