_{*Saturday’s Sound Off is an open venue for speaking out on issues related to books, book publishing, magazines, etc.  The plan is that there will be no regular, sole contributor, but that this column space will serve as an online speakers’ corner, providing a platform for people passionate about books with something to say.}

Two weeks ago, I attended the Anthony Awards luncheon in Baltimore, where the winners of the 2008 Anthony Awards were announced.

When Laura Lippman was announced as the winner of Best Short Story, she told an interesting story. She said Otto Penzler had invited her to submit a story for Dead Man’s Hand. When she sent him the story, titled Hardly Knew Her, his response was that it was a good story but not good enough. Laura explained that Otto made it clear that if she chose to keep the original incarnation of the story as submitted she was free to submit the work elsewhere, but he also included some editing suggestions and said that if she decided to rework the story he’d reconsider it.

Laura made the choice to take his suggestions, and when she accepted the award she thanked Otto Penzler for pushing her to make the story as good as it could be.

Laura Lippman. Winner of Edgar, Shamus, Agatha, Anthony and Spinetingler awards, nominated for a Macavity….Laura Bleeping Lippman takes the stage and thanks an editor for telling her a story wasn’t good enough.

If I hadn’t already adored Laura Lippman, she would have become one of my idols in that moment. While other authors flash brightly at the beginning of their careers and burn out, Laura Lippman continues to get better book to book to book.  Like a fine wine, her work gets sweeter with time, and the reason isn’t because she’s nice, funny and respected.

The reason her career continues to blossom is because she’s a professional.

Yes, a professional. Someone who doesn’t let their ego get in the way of the work, who doesn’t assume they’re infallible. Someone who strives to make their work as great as it possibly can be.

Now, the reason for this post isn’t to sing Laura Lippman’s praises, although that’s an easy thing to do. The reason I got thinking about Laura Lippman’s professionalism was because of something I saw on a blog.

Writing at First Offenders, Bryon Quertermous tried to explain why he’d kept his ezine, Demolition, going as long as he had.

It’s probably horrible to admit, but one of the reasons DEMOLITION has lasted this long is because many of the times I considered shutting it down I had stories out for consideration at other webzine and thought I might karma-jinx myself by shutting down the site. Two of those stories went on to be featured in print anthologies so it looks like I made the right choice. But I’ve pretty much exhausted the webzines I can submit to so I’m concentrating more on print markets, and more specifically my novel work.

Now, let’s not turn this into a beat-up-on-Bryon session. I don’t think he meant it quite the way it could come off to some, but I feared there might be readers who would take it at face value and think that the way to get accepted by online publications is just to start an ezine, so I want to talk about what this comment made me think of.

The fine line between generating good karma and trading favours.

Personally, I don’t think the fact that Bryon had stories that went on to be published in anthologies is proof he made the right decision. The fact that he only had two of those stories published in print and not three or four may be proof he made the wrong choice. Nobody can say one way or the other.

My point is simply this: It’s about the writing. The writing. You don’t run an ezine because you think it’ll help you get published, or keep one going long after you’ve lost interest just because you think people will be more likely to publish you. If you do, what you’re saying is that this community is all about back scratching, trading favours, and that people don’t earn their way into publications based on the quality of their work, but they get there because of who they know and how well connected they are.

Sadly, this might be true with some ezines, and even some print magazines, but I believe those publications will be short-lived. In the end, it is readers who decide what is quality, what is worth their time to read. When I started Spinetingler, what if I’d only published my friends at the time, most of whom hadn’t published a book and had limited publishing credits? If I’d kept publishing the same people just because they were my friends, regardless of the quality of the work, would readers have kept coming back to Spinetingler for more?

While it’s true that there might be something to be said for giving back to the community - and I have an appreciation for authors who try to support the genre as a whole instead of just promoting their own works - we must never lose sight of the fact that getting published, getting a book deal and getting invited to contribute to an anthology are things that happen because we produce quality material people want to read.  Not because we kissed the right backside at the last convention.

And no matter what our present success, if even Laura Lippman can be told a story is good but not quite up to par, then we have to be prepared to accept the odd rejection and instead of accusing the publication of failing to appreciate our genius or just publishing their friends, we might have to consider the fact that today, our best just wasn’t good enough.

Adopting a professional attitude and focusing on the writing will do more to help your career than publishing an ezine ever could.  

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Topics: Laura Lippman, Saturday Sound Off, Spinetingler