We’re published…but not…kinda

Tod Goldberg seems to have a habit of running into Very Strange People. Or at least, blogging about them. After one recent incident (which is hilarious), he asks a very telling question:

I’ve heard this term “pre-published” a number of times and it just sounds inane to me. If you were trying to become a lawyer, you wouldn’t call yourself “pre-legal” or if you were trying to become a taxidermist, you wouldn’t call yourself “pre-stuffed” or if you wanted to play Arena Football for the Arizona Rattlers, you wouldn’t call yourself “pre-professional 50 yard indoor war player.” So why do aspiring writers call themselves “pre-published” as if it isn’t something that is earned, but something pre-ordained?

And somehow, I doubt virgins would call themselves pre-sexual, either…

But more seriously, I’m curious too — the only reason this phrase makes sense is if you’re in the position of having sold your first book, but the publication date is either unfixed or months, if not years, away. Otherwise? No way.

Yet the answer’s obvious enough, I suppose — in a world where (according to one unverified stat) more than 80% of people believe they have a book in them, why should they feel anything less than entitlement and have a huge chip on their shoulder that Things Aren’t Going Their Way?

I guess I don’t get it either.