Why You Should Start Publishing Fiction

The Time is Now

Photo by Bram Naus on Unsplash

To place this post in proper context, I’d like to reintroduce myself. My name is Lucas Mangum. I’ve been writing and publishing dark fiction for a dozen years. My work has been nominated for the Splatterpunk Award three times, and I’ve been published by some of the best small presses in the horror genre. I’ve written close to twenty books and numerous short stories—these stories have shared a Table of Contents with the likes of Brian Keene, Wrath James White, Carver Pike, Weston Ochse, Jonathan Maberry, Charlee Jacob, Bridgett Nelson, Ryan Harding, and many, many more. To say I’ve accomplished quite a bit would be an understatement.

All that said, I won’t be quitting my day job anytime soon. None of my books have triple-digit reviews on Amazon. There are more people publishing now than ever before, which makes it easy to get lost in the shuffle. My emotional makeup is incompatible with constantly producing content on social media to promote my work. I’ve lost more friends than I’ve gained—some who saw fit to no longer slum it with weirdoes like me after they “made it;” others who weren’t who I thought they were and revealed themselves to be predatory jerks.

So, why the fuck am I writing a post encouraging others to get into this extremely difficult business? Find out beyond the break.

1. You get to hold a book that you wrote in your hands. Seriously. There is no feeling like it. In fact, it never gets old. Seeing my name in print, especially if it’s inside a well-formatted book with a gorgeous cover, always gives me that rare and wonderful feeling like, “Oh, I’m on the right path, doing exactly what I should be doing.” I’ve wanted to write books since I was six years old, and I’m doing that. Not everyone gets to manifest their childhood dreams, but I can honestly say that I have.

2. You’ll learn some things about yourself. Nothing shows you what you’re made of like finishing a project, and this is especially true with something as arduous as a writing a piece beginning to end. So much goes into writing a story: you’ve got to make sure the continuity matches up; the grammar and spelling need to be close to perfect; your story should read like, well, a story; there are lots of rules about writing fiction, and even if you aim to break them, you need to know them; and let’s not forget all the time it takes. And that’s just the writing part of it. Whether you self-publish or go through a publisher, the business side involves even more than I’ve listed here. By the time you’ve taken a book from initial idea to published work, you’re going to have a pretty good idea of what you can do.

3. You will be read. It might just be by your family and friends, it might be by millions of anonymous strangers, but you will be read by somebody. I have about 100-150 people who will buy anything I put out, no questions. Every new book I publish is an opportunity to grow that number. I’m very lucky. What’s fun about my station is that I can still have a relationship with a good percentage of my readers. Unless someone crosses a boundary and says or does something to make me uncomfortable, I will always respond if a reader reaches out. Sometimes this correspondence leads to genuine friendship. Here’s the thing: you may be unique—I mean that; I’m not being sarcastic or cynical—but you’re not so unique that nobody out there will be interested in the things that interest you enough to inspire a piece of writing. Find those people.

4. You will make lasting friendships with people who get you. This kind of goes along with the former point, but in this case, I’m speaking more specifically about other writers. While I stand by what I said about losing more friends than I’ve gained, the quality of the friendships I’ve maintained far outweighs the quantity of those relationships that fizzled out. There are regulars I run into at conventions, who I always greet with a handshake or hug. There are people I correspond with online or via text. And then there are those I see regularly in my personal life. My pal Shane McKenzie and I have sons who are the same age; our kids play together while we write, talk shop, or watch movies. He, Wrath James White, Wrath’s son Sultan, and I have a group text and check in with each other every day. I’m an introvert with social anxiety and all manner of insecurity, but it’s easy for me to break the ice with other writers because I know we share something so deeply important to me that any other differences are most likely inconsequential.

5. The world won’t be any worse with your book in it. Unless your name is Sutter Cane, your genre fiction book isn’t going to bring about the end of the world. I’m not saying your book will make the world a better place either. I’m simply saying that if you think writing and publishing something will make you happy, take a cue from a Nike commercial and just do it. A work of fiction can’t hurt someone, despite what the would-be online gatekeepers will tell you. Nothing in a work of fiction will ever be more offensive than real life. And while some of my extreme horror writer peers will take that as a challenge, it’s a challenge they won’t overcome; no matter what they write, it automatically becomes less offensive for the sheer fact that it is fiction. So, if you’ve got a work of fiction you want to put out there, you can do so with the peace of knowing that it’s not going to make the world a worse place.

---

Those are my reasons why you should publish your stories. Do you have any you’d add? Do you disagree with any of these points? As always, sound off in the comments.

If you like what I’m doing here, perhaps you’d like to check out my fiction. Here are some titles that may interest you:

• Barn Door to Hell: Satanic scarecrows run amok in a small Pennsylvania town.

• Bladejob: A professional wrestling match becomes a blood ritual for personal gain, and the cost is horrific.

• Snow Angels: In my tribute to John Carpenter’s The Fog, ghostly prisoners attack a small town during a snowstorm. This one’s up for a Splatterpunk Award this year.

• Saint Sadist: Pregnant with her father’s child, a young adult escapes her abusive household and falls in with a dangerous cult. This was nominated for a Splatterpunk Award for 2019.

• Gods of the Dark Web: In one of my more extreme books, a true crime writer goes looking for his missing brother and finds the answers lie on the dark web. This novella blends dark web lore with cosmic horror.

I’ve written a lot of other books, but any of those five would be a good place to start.

That’s it for now. As always, I appreciate you for being here.

Until next time …