Writers live for the Pub Cred. The Pub Cred is the way you know you’re a real writer. The Pub Cred is The Blue Fairy to wannabe writers.

A Pub Cred (publication credit) is any writing that appears in ink and/or pixelated inert gas that somebody paid you for writing. I would go a bit further and say that a byline is probably involved.

Pub Creds are a great way to spice up a query letter, assuring the agent that this is not your first rodeo. You’re real. The Blue Fairy has been to your house.  Your work has appeared in such prestigious publications as Slate, Film Review Quarterly, and Chicken Soup for the Pedophile Clown’s Soul.

So… Read that query carefully, BE-YATCH!

I used to envy the folks with three inches of Pub Creds. We seem to have a lot of them around my neck of the woods. We have a lot of writers around here who have essays in virtually every Chicken Soup iteration.  I think the new mommy meme is “Not Your Mother’s Book of ______.” Not having read a word of this series, I’m willing to bet a testicle that the essays found within would be exactly the type of essays that my mother would be interested in reading.

Before I get too far in the weeds of jealous douchebaggery, my disclosure(s):

One: I cannot write a short story. I cannot.  Can. Not. God knows I’ve tried. My short stories became 40K word novellas. My novellas become novels. I guess I was born a novelist. I am a gasbag.

Two: I’m a professional Tech Writer. I’ve got nothing to prove to anyone. I’ve made my bones as a writer. If the Blue Fairy hasn’t fluttered through the window to announce her intent to publish my novel, then she can shake her little blue ass right on back through the return air vent. Not interested. You got paid 30 cents a word for your short story? Great. Go with God. I’m creeping up on a six figure salary. I assure you, I get paid way more than 30 cents a word for writin’ reg’lar. (Douchy enough for ya?)

Which leads me to my thesis observation on the essay/anthology/Farm System theory of Pub Creds.

I simply don’t see these kinds of “Farm System” Pub Creds having one whit of influence on agents.

“Sure they do, Shawn! Of course they do! It shows the agent that the writer is a committed writer.”

Uhhhh… Okay. I understand that theory. I’m just saying that I know several people (five) with a ton of anthology pub creds, and none of them have ever sold a novel to a major publisher. Nada.

Too small a sampling to make such a judgment?  Okay.

Am I saying that the pursuit of anthology Pub Creds is pointless?  Absolutely not. No. I admire people who write short stories.  I love short stories. I love a good essay. I wish I could do it. By all means, write, write, write, sell, sell, sell.

I’m just saying that I’m not (yet) seeing the causality between anthology publication and major novel publishing.

Every now and then I’m bitten by the insecurity that I have skipped an important part of the writing process hierarchy because I haven’t sold a short story. “How you gonna sell a novel if you can’t sell a short story?”

But… The more trips I make around the Sun, the more certain I am that novel writing is a skill unto itself, and short stories and essays are not the Farm System for the Big Twelve publishing houses.