i sent in a short story i wrote to a contest, and today i got news. despite not winning the first prize, i was still selected for publishing! i was over the moon, grinning from ear to ear. my name, in print? a real book, with my writing in it! they said they picked 47 winners out of 1,523 entries, and i got selected!

i would keep the rights to my story, and the publishing house asked for 54 usd to cover editing and publication costs. i would become a real author soon! i felt so proud, i wanted to tell all my friends about it

and a friend answered “why would you do that?”. i was confused. he went on: “i guess i’m just strongly against vanity publishing”. i didn’t know what that was, so i looked it up. ‘vanity publishing’ is when an author pays to be published regardless of their writing being terrible. in traditional publishing, the editorial house pays the author, not the other way around

so even if this editorial house isn’t asking for a lot of money, it’s… It’s still a scam. many authors who don’t know about this end up losing thousands of dollars and getting books that aren’t even well made.

my joy curdled in my veins. paying to publish would mean no one actually thought my writing was good, they just thought i would be easy to scam, and they were right. i was so excited, so proud, so thankful, i didn’t even consider this could be too good to be true. i don’t even know if someone read what i wrote. were there really 1,523 entries? was i actually selected, or did everyone get an email asking for money?

usually, taking a shower distracts me, but today i cried while i showered. at least I’m clean now, so i can cry some more.