Writing for readers…
I generally am happy to see a WD in my mailbox (that’s Writer’s Digest, in case you’re wondering if I’m missing an M). Nevertheless, I’ve always thought the apostrophe is misplaced and lately there has been this nagging suspicion that their editorial board just doesn’t get it. Joe Konrath has a better perspective on the industry (unfortunately, his participation in his blog is going on a hiatus). However, he doesn’t get it completely either.
WD still propagates the myth of legacy publishing (this myth states that an author needs an agent, an editor, publisher, and publicist, with one of the Big Six providing the first two of the last three, the agent taking a hefty cut just for getting an MS , short for manuscript, beyond the slush pile where all unagented MSs go, and the author generally providing his or her own marketing–in other words, he or she can contract the publicist. Joe and others like Barry Eisler have shown that the Big Six publishing houses are now built on sand and moreover have their heads buried in it. Sure, they’re trying to invade and control the new digital paradigm, now revolutionized by eBooks, but they’re choking—they still live their myth and are making badly formatted eBooks at exorbitant prices (one that I will not name created a mini-scandal when people started complaining about formatting and price).
I write this blog and it is mostly a cantankerous curmudgeon’s comments on current events—a free wheelin’ op-ed, I like to call it—because I know, as every writer knows deep down inside, readers rule. I do some posts about writing that are usually non-conformist—meaning, they would never grace the pages of WD. Those posts are intended for writers, but their non-conformist nature might entertain and amuse readers as well. However, my main goal is to provide new content for readers on this website—some of it might seem controversial, but I hope all of it is readable, that is, accessible to my readers. Of course, this includes my reviews and mini-reviews, provided as a service for readers. The new blog category “News and Notices from the Writing Trenches” is for readers too—news about my books, others’ books, and what’s going on with the publishing industry.
I don’t think Joe Konrath has lost sight of the fact that readers rule. The focus of his blog is just different—it tells the Big Six where to stick it and that the old paradigm of legacy publishing is about as effective as a T-Rex trying to copulate with a gnat. (I said that, not Joe, and yes, I’m not certain that gnats existed in the Jurassic, but, if they did, they weren’t as big as T-Rex.) Maybe those are harsh words, but Joe and Barry did a good number on me. I’m not just all digital—I’m all eBook, because I believe they represent the best bargain for readers and the most efficient way for writers to reach their readers. (I’ve given all my trade paperbacks an eBook format, except Soldiers of God, and I plan to release it soon as an eBook. Full Medical now exists as an eBook second edition and its sequel, Evil Agenda, appearing originally as a serialized novella on this website, will soon be released as a full novel in eBook format.)
Is this work? You bet! Writing is work. However, it’s the conversion that is the real work here (and re-editing, if any, like Full Medical and Evil Agenda). Sending off a MS to an eBook formatter (I use fellow writer Donna Carrick, author of The First Excellence, as my formatter—she and her hubby run Carrick Publishing) is much easier than following Infinity Publishing’s formatting rules in order to release a trade paperback. In fact, I’m willing to guess that Amazon and Smashwords’ rules for formatting are also easily decipherable, but to have to do it twice irks me (so, when I say I use Donna, I probably should say abuse, in the sense that I take time away from her writing—but hey, she offers the service, which I very much recommend).
“Why go to the trouble?” you might ask. Because I try to please my readers. My first emphasis is content: I try to be entertaining and original with my writing. I’m not about to follow fads, though, and that probably gives me two strikes with agents from the get-go. I don’t care what agents opine because they are biased towards the legacy myth and represent only a small percentage of the reading public. I write sci-fi thrillers. Even my sci-fi thriller for young adults is not Harry Potter in outer space. I will never write a romance novel, especially one about werewolves, vampires, or shapshifters. Moreover, if readers find my work and enjoy it, I will try to bring it to them in the most convenient form, expeditiously. I think too many writers forget that readers rule. We often bloviate among ourselves about writing and pat each other on the shoulder in mutual admiration blogs, but by doing so we run the risk of also becoming dinosaurs along with the legacy publishers.
A cultural analogy might be in order. For many years, I regularly attended BSO performance (another acronym, meaning this time Boston Symphony Orchestra). When they first hired James Levine as principal conductor, I thought it was a great thing. I’d heard him conduct at the Met a few times and was a bit worried he would burn the candle at both ends, and so he did. However, the worst thing he did to Boston audiences was to try to cram modern academic schlock music down our throats—what he called “educating the public.”
What Levine forgot is what writers often forget: music and literature needs a paying public that is interested and enthusiastic about what the artist has to say. Mozart, for example, became famous because the Viennese public loved him. The music he wrote was also extremely good, so we still listen to it today. In literature, Dickens was a Mozart—most of his books came out just like Evil Agenda, that is, in serial form. The public loved his work, was entertained by it, and couldn’t get enough of it.
Many “serious musicians” nowadays are in academia because they write stuff that no one understands, listens to, or likes. They write for their old boys’ network of old fools and friends. Sycophants like James Levine promote their lofty compositions to an unsuspecting public. The tell-tale for me was watching a couple bring their mentally challenged relative with them to the BSO one night. Mr. Levine taps his Harry Potter’s wand and the magnificent orchestra launched into a god-awful ruckus that not even Rowling’s Deadly Hallows magic could straighten out. The mentally challenged man’s critique said it all—he put an index finger in each ear. You don’t need many faculties to recognize garbage.
Of course, the erudite can argue that I just don’t understand how wonderful this cacophony really is. So be it. There is a certain snob appeal to the arts that I can’t comprehend. I don’t want a Pollack or Mapplethorpe to tell me I just don’t understand them. I don’t want a Stockhausen or Berg to tell me either. The same goes for literature. Readers rule. What I think personally as an artist, a writer in my case, really doesn’t matter—in music, art, or literature. What matters is the public perception—what the listeners, the viewers, and the readers think. My opinion only counts when I take off my creative hat as a writer and become a reader. We can all become more educated participants in the process, of course, but this education can come from familiarity that carries you beyond to the hidden meaning. Nevertheless, Boston concertgoers are some of the most avid music listeners in the country—Levine insulted them by saying that he needed to educate them.
When the arts lose sight of pleasing their intended audience, they’re doomed to failure. That’s not a reason to follow fads, of course—audiences follow fads but also appreciate originality within that fad. Artists have to make a compromise between what is popular and what is their individual twist on reality. Making art, music, or literature for a few academic and erudite friends might be enough to satisfy some artists, but not me. Sure, some might keep going with NEA grants handed out by the old boys’ networks comprising those friends, but they also might as well start their trips to the museum to join that T-Rex. I’m afraid too many writers have lost sight of that. The ranks of writers writing “literary fiction,” the number of writers still holding on to the legacy paradigm, the fads generating gangs of mutual admirers—all this is not healthy when viewed from the perspective of the readers.
In WD’s Inkwell column, a ubiquitous feature of the magazine, Don Vaughan writes an article titled “Calling All Writers!” and subtitled “Follow these 10 foolproof tips to launch your own regional writing conference.” I cringed at reading the subtitle. Writing conferences might be fun for writers—plenty of good food and drink, I suppose, and possibly some useful schmoozing—but you won’t meet or talk to any readers there. You will see many lesser known authors tripping over themselves in their desire to talk to more famous authors and their agents (the latter, of course, like to have their egos stroked while promoting the agenda of the Big Six). I’d advise writers to stay away from such things—and certainly to not create more of them!
Forget about perpetuating the legacy myth. Use your fellow writers selfishly to improve your own writing (WD can help here, of course—it is good for something). Help other writers to improve their writing skills, but don’t write for them. Readers rule—get to know your readers, through public or online discussion sessions on your topics, interviews with public input, your blog (always allow comments), and so forth. Leave the writing conferences’ organization to MFA and English programs—you’re better off spending your time and money writing and staying in touch with your readers. You’ll only learn to do that in the school of hard knocks, not those programs. I only know of one MFA program that doesn’t focus on the nebulous fiction genre “literary fiction”—I saw it described in WD a few months ago and wrote the author of the article to congratulate him.
In libris libertas…
