Vindication

Vindication is such an odd word. It seems to say that you need someone else to prove that you are right, but that's not always what it means. Sometimes things are obviously true, even if some people are not willing to admit it -- even after events play out in such a way that makes it obvious the choices made, though unpopular with some, were the right ones.

I've had people argue with me over everything I do at the site, but for the most part I've been right. And sometimes, like this week, I get a couple nice letters from people thanking me for keeping the site running with so few problems over the last year. Always nice to hear that people appreciate the work that goes into it.

Today has seen a couple different aspects of vindication played out for me. I am amused by them all, but especially by the SFWA sting operation against Publish America. Like many people working with new writers, I've tried to direct people away from vanity press publishers, and especially places like PublishAmerica.

People will still argue with me about self-publishing and even PA, I'm sure, but in this one I've stood up on the right side of this one.

If you are a serious writer respect the people who are trying to help you, even when you don't agree with their methods. Sometimes you find out the hard way that they were right.

And take a look at this: (Quoted with permission from the SFF.net Boards, specifically Vera Nazarian's post)

Several months ago, Yog (James D. Macdonald) got many of us SFWAns and others involved in a secret project to prove that PublishAmerica really DOES publish anything and everything submitted to it.

And now, here are the results, made public and excerpted from a post that Yog made:

* * *

Now it can be told.

Do you all recall a year ago, when I was looking for chapters for a Bad Book, to test to see if PublishAmerica(http://www.authorsmarket.net/) really was selective about what they bought?

Several of y'all helped that project by providing chapters -- without knowing what the other chapters were, whether the chapter was first, last, or somewhere else in the narrative, what time of year it was, or much of anything else.

PublishAmerica bought the book.

(note -- the links below have crashed some people's browsers)

You can read the manuscript atftp://ftp.sff.net/pub/people/doylemacdonald/sting/StingManuscript.rtf

You can read the acceptance letter atftp://ftp.sff.net/pub/people/doylemacdonald/sting/Sting_acceptance.rtf

You can read the sample contract atftp://ftp.sff.net/pub/people/doylemacdonald/sting/Contract.pdf

Never again let it be said that PublishAmerica is "selective" in what they accept. Never again let it be said that they reject the majority of the manuscripts they receive. Never again let it be said that they are anything other than a vanity press.