In the past, the term “self-publishing” meant “vanity” publishing. Vanity publishers produce a book from an author’s manuscript, at the author’s expense, and, according to Wikipedia, “publication by a vanity press is typically not seen as conferring the same recognition or prestige as commercial publication.” That is putting it mildly. The traditional publishing industry stigmatizes self-published works as, well, crap trash.

In the last few years, however, the advent of Print on Demand (POD) technology has enabled authors to become their own publishers, and publishing one’s own work has become not only much easier, but in some cases preferable to traditional publishing.

Because of the stigma of the term “self-published,” authors have borrowed a term from independent film and begun to call themselves independent publishers. Independent films are not presumed to be trash. Their production may be constrained by small budgets, but not by the needs of a studio seeking the next blockbuster. Independent films have earned the respect of their industry. And so will independent publishers.

Print on Demand technology has also encouraged the formation of small publishing houses that publish a collection of authors, usually authors who write for a particular audience, like, for instance, the lesbian audience. These publishers also call themselves independent publishers.

So to distinguish ourselves from those independent publishers, the members of the Medusa Literary Society decided to call ourselves “fiercely independent,” because we are authors who have established our own publishing companies to publish our work.

The purpose of this website is to form a community of “fiercely independent” lesbian author/publishers, so that we can help each other reach a wider audience, and so that we can share our publishing experience with each other and with others who may wish to become “fiercely independent.”