The Prostitute (Choosing an Indie Publisher Part II)
The following essay is now appearing at The Vincent Zandri Vox in slightly different form: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.it/2014...
A colleague of mine attended a writer's conference recently in which a self-published author who is also an "indie publisher," was overheard telling a would-be scribe that he didn't need to be a good writer just to publish a book since he can just get someone else to "clean it up." However, the would-be scribe should never hire an English major to clean up said book. The English major will just, and I quote, "screw things up."
Re-read the above paragraph and try to grasp, if you will, its importance, as well as the repugnance I feel for it. It's easy nowadays to publish a novel. Authors have choices. We can either enter into the old game of submitting a manuscript to a big publisher and play the waiting game, or we can publish it with an independent press that utilizes the Kindle Direct (Self) Publishing platform for its system of distribution. However, along with KDP also comes those prostitutes who, seeing that there is money to be made off of people who lust the validation of publication, will stop at nothing to sell them a bill of cheap gratification.
The prostitute/indie publisher will typically also claim to be a skilled writer, and he might have even made a few bucks doing it since he knows precisely how to "game" Amazon's algorithm system. He will even brag about gaming the system, while the old truism about a good book selling itself organically via word of mouth is for...well...chumps. But he's not really a writer since he will inevitably have to hire someone to write (or "clean up") his books for him.
He is however good at one thing: Prostituting himself and his indie press to published-starved individuals who will cut off their left arm for the gratification that can only come with a publishing contract. These unknowing people are the prostitute's clients. He will tell them, don't worry about skill. You can hire people to fix that. But not English majors because the English major is too smart, too hard working, too caring about the English language. We are into this venture to make money and that's it. Doesn't matter if the product is inferior and even insulting. People are stupid and they are still going to buy it. In fact, he can "trick" them into buying it.
Imagine if Hemingway, or Mailer, or Stephen King thought that talent and hard work were not a necessity and prerequisite of writing? That literature could simply be cobbed together like a half-assed addition to some trailer home out in the boondocks. Imagine the cheapening and eventually, dumbing down of literature that would inevitably occur? Or put another way altogether, imagine if an aeronautical engineer wasn't required to be that good? Or a structural engineer? Or a brain surgeon? You get the picture.
Writing is not only something to make money off of, it is a responsibility. A priestly endeavor that for the true writer, will never be mastered, but only worked at with all the struggle and negative capability that Shakespeare put into Hamlet. I've been saying for a long time now, that perhaps KDP and other self-publishing platforms should hire teams of editors to monitor the quality of the indie writing they self-publish. I suppose the amateur review system that's been put in place is a kind of monitoring system. But believe me when I tell you, the prostitute has that game conned as well, more than likely having paid big bucks for four and five star reviews for spiel that under the old publishing paradigm, would not have been considered fifth grade level.
Back in the mid 1990s, I earned my MFA in Writing. It took me two years full-time while I had a wife and two toddlers running around. We were broke but sacrificing for the betterment of me as a writer, knowing that one day, with more hard work, it would pay off. And it has. But there is so much more hard work to do and under no circumstance will I ever hire someone to clean up after my mess. Indie publishers who prostitute themselves for the sake of a quick and easy buck should be exposed and stopped before they undermine a proper literary legacy that has taken centuries to construct.
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Moonlight Weeps
Moonlight Weeps
A colleague of mine attended a writer's conference recently in which a self-published author who is also an "indie publisher," was overheard telling a would-be scribe that he didn't need to be a good writer just to publish a book since he can just get someone else to "clean it up." However, the would-be scribe should never hire an English major to clean up said book. The English major will just, and I quote, "screw things up."
Re-read the above paragraph and try to grasp, if you will, its importance, as well as the repugnance I feel for it. It's easy nowadays to publish a novel. Authors have choices. We can either enter into the old game of submitting a manuscript to a big publisher and play the waiting game, or we can publish it with an independent press that utilizes the Kindle Direct (Self) Publishing platform for its system of distribution. However, along with KDP also comes those prostitutes who, seeing that there is money to be made off of people who lust the validation of publication, will stop at nothing to sell them a bill of cheap gratification.
The prostitute/indie publisher will typically also claim to be a skilled writer, and he might have even made a few bucks doing it since he knows precisely how to "game" Amazon's algorithm system. He will even brag about gaming the system, while the old truism about a good book selling itself organically via word of mouth is for...well...chumps. But he's not really a writer since he will inevitably have to hire someone to write (or "clean up") his books for him.
He is however good at one thing: Prostituting himself and his indie press to published-starved individuals who will cut off their left arm for the gratification that can only come with a publishing contract. These unknowing people are the prostitute's clients. He will tell them, don't worry about skill. You can hire people to fix that. But not English majors because the English major is too smart, too hard working, too caring about the English language. We are into this venture to make money and that's it. Doesn't matter if the product is inferior and even insulting. People are stupid and they are still going to buy it. In fact, he can "trick" them into buying it.
Imagine if Hemingway, or Mailer, or Stephen King thought that talent and hard work were not a necessity and prerequisite of writing? That literature could simply be cobbed together like a half-assed addition to some trailer home out in the boondocks. Imagine the cheapening and eventually, dumbing down of literature that would inevitably occur? Or put another way altogether, imagine if an aeronautical engineer wasn't required to be that good? Or a structural engineer? Or a brain surgeon? You get the picture.
Writing is not only something to make money off of, it is a responsibility. A priestly endeavor that for the true writer, will never be mastered, but only worked at with all the struggle and negative capability that Shakespeare put into Hamlet. I've been saying for a long time now, that perhaps KDP and other self-publishing platforms should hire teams of editors to monitor the quality of the indie writing they self-publish. I suppose the amateur review system that's been put in place is a kind of monitoring system. But believe me when I tell you, the prostitute has that game conned as well, more than likely having paid big bucks for four and five star reviews for spiel that under the old publishing paradigm, would not have been considered fifth grade level.
Back in the mid 1990s, I earned my MFA in Writing. It took me two years full-time while I had a wife and two toddlers running around. We were broke but sacrificing for the betterment of me as a writer, knowing that one day, with more hard work, it would pay off. And it has. But there is so much more hard work to do and under no circumstance will I ever hire someone to clean up after my mess. Indie publishers who prostitute themselves for the sake of a quick and easy buck should be exposed and stopped before they undermine a proper literary legacy that has taken centuries to construct.
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Moonlight Weeps
Moonlight Weeps
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