Abstract:
A do-it-yourself culture and amateur production are significant features
of creative industries. Self-publishing is an eloquent expression of these
features. Self-publishers invest in and make decisions to publish their
creative goods without the involvement of an established and external
production company or publishing house. In creative industries, claims
are made about the inferior quality of self-published works, creating a
stigma for self-publishing. This article investigates the ways in which
aspiring writers who are considering self-publishing, handle the tension
between their aspiration to publish a book and the possible stigma of
self-publishing. The study draws on an analysis of interviews with 59
writers who are considering self-publishing as an option or who have
self-published a book. The aspiring writers are aware of the subordinate
status of such publications and while some avoid self-publishing,
others seek ways to establish and legitimise the quality of their work
to avoid the stigma. Legitimisation is produced through the perception
of a transitioning author role and by shifting the basis of evaluation
of publishability to the consumer side in creative industries, to nonprofessional
judgement, and to the experience of being published. The
outcome of the decision to self-publish, and the underpinning culture for
making such assessments, has consequences for how books and other
cultural goods are currently produced and the type of cultural goods
that reach consumers. The assessment of self-publishing as an option
among writers exposes tensions and transformations in the evaluation of
cultural goods in contemporary creative industries.