A Very New Way Of Seeing Things

I just published a book on a very new way of seeing things. As in everything. It's officially called AutoGenesisism, and until I wrote and published this book, it didn't exist. I avoided the traditional publishing houses with this project, since (1) I didn't want to lose the premise itself to the manuscript submission process and (2) it's extremely counterintuitive compared to the standard approach to metaphysics, and publishers don't like what they can't understand, or what hasn't been presented before. Not a big deal, since I'm pretty resourceful, and don't really need anyone to lay out the book or design the cover, and with the new POD delivery platform, Amazon is just a percentage cut and nothing more cumbersome than that. It's up and online for sale and will be on Amazon in a week or so (they have a process apparently).

However, I have run into a buzz saw concerning making the basics of Auto-G available to the general public. Wikipedia.org.

Apparently, I can't put up a Wiki article about AutoGenesisism, and the reason is because I didn't sell my book to a traditional publishing house. Here's the specific regulation concerning my extremely original metaphysics theory's validity on Wikipedia.

Self-published sources (online and paper)

Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media—including but not limited to books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs, Internet forum postings, and tweets—are largely not acceptable.

In some circumstances, self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so. Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer: see WP:BLP#Reliable sources.

Of course, since AutoGenesisism is not an established theory - it's actually a theology - then no one can be an established expert on it. Also, the nature of it is so unlike any other metaphysical or theological premise, being an expert in traditional approaches actually hinders one's capacity to easily allow for the foundational ideas of Auto-G. In essence, being an expert in AutoGenesisism is almost exactly the opposite of being an expert in Theology or traditional Metaphysics. Kind of a Catch-22 it seems.

So, if (let's imagine) Jesus had come to Earth in 2010, and brought His new way of seeing the relationship between God and humanity, He would've either had to get a publishing deal (if He could've gotten one of the NYC agents to shop it for him, of course), and kept the premise from getting "edited for market acceptance", or He would've been barred from the most popular online information reference source with his Christianty theory due to the fact that no one else ever published it before he came up with it. I guess it's a good thing that He came when he did, since Wiki doesn't specify anything about walking across the plaza reflecting pool out front as being a thru-pass to article acceptance.

Am I missing something here?

I don't think your particularly missing anything, its a very foggy area.

I think Wikipedia has to draw a line in the sand somewhere, because if we can count anything we publish ourselves, then any term, word, idea can have an infinite amount of entries.

And Jesus didn't get a publishing deal until 300 years after he died.

I suppose the point is, that when it becomes important enough for other people to publish it, or works about it, or reports on it, then it becomes something more than just something you made up and want on Wikipedia.

Having said that though, I would like to get some more information about your theology. Why so hung up on Wikipedia? When you can publish right here on ATS?

reply to post by NorEaster

I can't put up a Wiki article

Wikipedia notoreity rules are well known for creating problems. For example, there's discussion going on right now that even ATS fails the notoreity test and therefore doesn't qualify for a wiki entry. Note that even if you did qualify, supposedly you still aren't allowed to create an entry because you created the work, so you'd need to have somebody else do it.

Am I missing something here?

The solution: send copies of your book to reviewers accompanied by nice, personalized letters until one of them writes a review for you.

reply to post by countercounterculture


I guess it's because that's where I go for information. Like playing the rock club you hang out in with your new band.

I've messaged this board's admins about what I can post without violating the guerilla marketing clauses here, and I'm awaiting an overview. I just want to establish the notion without making the book irrelevant. Then again, it takes 118,000 words to properly present it, so that's probably not likely.

I was just surprised at the fact that unless someone else (someone besides me that Wiki has determined to be established in some way or other) has to - I don't know - "approve" independently that my ideas aren't insane before a wide swath of humanity will be allowed to make their own mind up about whether I'm nuts or not.

I guess you really can't avoid having to bow to some person and get their permission regardless of what you have to offer. Maybe I should hand this off to someone who doesn't see that as an insult.