So what is it about getting published that so delights us? I've already mentioned how ecstatic I felt when my story "Unquiet Slumbers" was accepted by May December Publications for the third in their series of zombie anthologies, First Time Dead, Volume 3. I mean, self-publishing is also incredibly rewarding, in that you must format correctly, come up with a cover, upload all your data, provide the right information for whichever medium you choose, etc. And that's before all the promotion and marketing. But I do have to say that the acceptance by and of our peers, of fellow authors and publishers within the industry, provides an added gleam to something already pretty shiny.
Well, today, I discovered something that turns that gleam into something blinding in its intensity. Venturing outside (yes, I really did this, no lie) to check the mail, I discovered three packages, two of which I'd been expecting, one which was mysterious. Too large for a CD or DVD. Perhaps someone had gifted me a book from Amazon? Then I saw the word Createspace on the sticky outer label and the penny dropped. Of course! On acceptance of our stories in the above-named anthology, we'd been promised a copy of the actual book and not just the ebook. And here it was.
And I don't mind admitting I got a little excitable. I tore open the cardboard and flipped to the back. Yes! There were the author signatures we'd been asked to provide. A nice touch. Oh, and there was my absurd author photo and bio. And there's my byline and story in the Table of Contents... and at last, flipping to the second story, there's my tale of a zombie soccer mom struggling with the disintegration of everything she loved. And I was overjoyed. Which, in that context, makes me sound like a bad person. But you know what I mean. This was, in other words, a tangible, visceral thing; a body of work I contributed to and have been acknowledged for, within its very pages. I love my Kindle, but nothing quite matches this.
You will forgive me if I plaster this post with the photos I took? I mean, I already bragged across half of Facebook, so I know no shame, but this is pure joy. And hell, since it visits us so infrequently, no one ought to begrudge our occasional extravagance with its expression. At heart, we write for ourselves. We should. But we'd be lying if we didn't admit that the approval of others wasn't almost as important an occasional oasis in the economic desert we find ourselves in as writers.
And this oasis, solid in my hands as I rifled through the pages, was no mirage.
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David Antrobus also writes for Indies Unlimited and BlergPop. Be sure to check out his work there if you like what you read here.