Are you a ‘published author’ if you self-publish?

On social media, a former colleague describes himself as a “published author” and proudly displays the cover of his book in his profile. I discovered it was self-published. Should he be allowed to describe himself as “published”?
D.G., Aspendale, Vic

A: Many big-time authors have self-published: Charles Dickens, Margaret Atwood, Marcel Proust, Beatrix Potter and, of course, that literary icon E. L. James, whose Fifty Shades of Grey sold more than 90 million copies (every single one of those copies is now stacked in the back of my local secondhand bookstore, holding up the ceiling in huge, heaving, load-bearing erections).

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There’s nothing wrong with self-publishing, but your former colleague calling himself a “published author” is a bit cheeky. It’s like me calling myself a produced filmmaker because I made a seven-minute iMovie for my parents’ golden wedding anniversary, which was just a photo slideshow with way too much Ken Burns effect and seven minutes of Spandau Ballet’s Gold on loop.

Getting a book published can involve years of submissions, rejections, editing, rewriting and meticulous quality-control, while self-publishing a book might just involve popping down to a Kwik Kopy or uploading the manuscript to the internet (which could take less than five minutes depending on your connection speed).

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But even though it’s technically, morally, professionally, literarily and infuriatingly wrong for your former colleague to embellish his credentials, I still say good on him for showing a bit of chutzpah.

The book biz is brutal and authors have to do whatever they can to flog their wares, whether it’s lying, cheating, murdering … or strolling casually into bookstores to sneak their book into the front window, shifting all the bestselling books into the poetry section where nobody ever goes, then strolling back out again without any staff noticing.

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