> I occasionally see papers that are pretty obviously coming from industry where it's pretty apparent that the authors just have no idea what a contribution entails.
My advisor is in PL too, and he's commented on the exact same thing. Every time he's on the PC for a conference, he's able to pick out a couple papers that he's confident are written by non-academics. He says it's a combination of the lack of thorough knowledge on the subject (attempting to present an idea as novel when it's been done before, but under a different name) and the writing style (not academic enough). It seems that these are things OP should definitely look out for if they want to successfully self-publish.
My advisor is in PL too, and he's commented on the exact same thing. Every time he's on the PC for a conference, he's able to pick out a couple papers that he's confident are written by non-academics. He says it's a combination of the lack of thorough knowledge on the subject (attempting to present an idea as novel when it's been done before, but under a different name) and the writing style (not academic enough). It seems that these are things OP should definitely look out for if they want to successfully self-publish.