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| Midnight guards the gate–always on alert against the Tsunami of Swill photo by mike warren via flickr |
During the summer of 2000, our family lived in Baltimore and we took a trip to Colonial Williamsburg. One of the things that stood out most for me was the courtroom and mock trial. Visitors were chosen to participate by presenting cases typical of the time period to the court. One lady said that a certain butcher was selling bad meat. Shouldn’t there be a law or something? To which the court responded, “Let the buyer beware.”
There are no more gatekeepers.
I understand this fact is unsettling to many. The Big 5 (who until recently were The Big 6 and who will no doubt one day simply be The Big One) have defenders who have taken to the Internet of late to rail against the Tsunami of Swill that self-publishing has unleashed on an unsuspecting public. There ought to be a law! They speak of the necessity of gatekeepers to ensure quality, but never mention Snooki.
The Big 5 are not interested in quality. They’re interested in making money. And as we have seen from many of their defenders they look at authors as…well, as cattle. Only the best get through the gate to be slaughtered and eaten. (I got that from someone’s brilliant response on one of the many blogs I’ve been reading.)
It’s true, the apologists are sounding a bit desperate. They are somehow defending the unconscionable contracts forced on writers–contracts under which authors’ rights are taken, their careers held back, and their money…well, most of it goes to the publisher and very little to them.
I don’t know what the future holds. All I know is that there are no more gatekeepers. I get that publishers, who make money off the backs of authors, are upset about it. I get that agents are worried about their income. And I guess I get that traditionally published authors, the elite, might be a bit miffed.
The playing field is now level. As others before me have pointed out, at Amazon, no one is stuck spine out; no one is given half a shelf; no one gets floor stacks by the door or stacks on the front table, anymore. Every book gets a page. Every book. Every single one. Whether you like it or not.
We’re all equals now.
I read one of Chuck Wendig’s recent posts on this horror story and was a bit disconcerted. He was challenging authors who want to self publish their work, saying they had better understand what it entails. And they better do it well.
Because I don’t want to read books put out by publishers who don’t want to do that job or don’t know how to do it in the first goddamn place. Readers don’t, either, just as we don’t want to look at books written by writers who don’t care about or know about writing.
He was, of course, referring to the infamous Tsunami of Swill that is overloading the book universe and under which, to the minds of Big 5 apologists, readers are drowning and the written word devolving. (Again, no mention of Snooki.)
I responded.
I was with you up until this point: “Because I don’t want to read books put out by publishers who don’t want to do that job or don’t know how to do it in the first goddamn place. Readers don’t, either, just as we don’t want to look at books written by writers who don’t care about or know about writing.”
There it almost sounds like you’re saying, “if you can’t do all the above to my satisfaction, don’t self-publish.” But nobody cares what you think or what you want to read. I’ve read a lot of really bad self-published books with a big following and a lot of great reviews. I’ve read some really bad traditionally published books, too.
It’s just not our place as authors to tell other authors if they’re doing it right or if their book is good enough. As a reader, sure. But the first chapters are easily available at Amazon, so no one’s forcing you to read a bad book. Authors: write it your way, publish it your way, and let your readers decide. That’s all there is to it, anymore. It’s called freedom.
He responded by saying he’s not a gatekeeper.
But he missed my point. There are no gatekeepers, anymore. The next post I saw on the subject by Wendig was odd. Very odd. He said he would say just this last thing, and no more. And he did not allow comments. In this last gasp, he listed all of the defenses he’s heard about self-publishing and, I guess, attempted to debunk them.
“Readers are gatekeepers.” Mmmyeah. Nope.
And the “nope” was linked to an earlier post of his in which he talks a lot about how readers don’t make good gatekeepers.
I read that and I thought…he just doesn’t get it.
There are no more gatekeepers.
Readers aren’t gatekeepers. They’re buyers. They go to the store, or more likely to Amazon, they look at books that others have recommended to them, that they’ve heard about, that Amazon tells them they’ll like and they read a bit of them. The blurbs. The comments. An entire chapter (just click on the picture of the book there, Chuck. It’s easy.) And they decide whether or not they want to buy.
That’s not gatekeeping. That’s not saying which books will be allowed to be culled and published and which will not. It’s Colonial Williamsburg at work. Let the buyer beware. The buyer will choose what he wants to read.
There’s no one out there to stop you from becoming an author, anymore. No one.
For some this is horrific. It’s anarchy. It’s chaos. It’s the masses loosed into the world! My god! It’s the end of civilization as we know it. Now any Snooki can put a book up at Amazon! Any Snooki at all!
And I love it.
My real writing career didn’t start until I realized I could control it. I got a few really good rejections. Rejections that would make many authors keep trying. But the world changed. It shifted right under my feet. I started learning about my choices. Choices! And I chose.
I didn’t choose forever. I didn’t say never to anything. But I chose to be a working writer and to put my work out there for the public to consume, or not. If that’s anarchy and chaos, I like it.
But all it really is, is freedom.
Relevant blog posts on this subject from The Passive Voice:
The Passive Voice: Hugh Howey’s revolution
The Passive Voice: A Case of the Shatz–Fisking Mike Shatzkin
The Passive Voice: What writers leave on the table
The Passive Voice: New Author Earnings Report
The Passive Voice: Fisking Donald Maass