"Self-Published Books are Crap"

 

"I love the Kindle. It's a great product. But the Kindle isn't about reading; it's about $$$$$. It promotes terrible self-published crap and phases out functioning models that people rely on. It's a business that uses literature as a commodity, not an art."

This lovely quote comes from a woman I follow on X. She's not famous, but she has a lot of followers---93K, in fact. Her bio states that she's an essayist and novelist. It does not say that she supports fellow authors, obviously. 

How the discussion veered from Amazon discontinuing support for first generation Kindles to the awfulness of self-published books points to this woman's ingrained biases. I took a look at her publishing history and she has three novels, which were published between 2005 and 2015 by a boutique publishing house that doesn't accept unagented manuscripts.

So, she has (had?) an agent. This explains her follow-up to me after I responded:

"I know you didn't mean it that way (?), but all self-published books aren't crap." 

"No they aren't. But most are. And that's the problem. Finding something that isn't among the sea of bad stuff is nearly impossible. Letting everything in with no gatekeeper is all about marketing to wannabe writers - not readers."

She's all on board with "gatekeepers". This from someone who on X constantly decries the excesses of liberalism. Is she aware of who literary agents are? I am. I've blogged about them. I have real-world experience with them. 

She thinks good books need to pass her smell test; fine. But now, how many of her 93,000 followers will think so, too? She put it out there; she told the world that self-published books are trash. Thanks, lady.

I briefly thought about responding, about arguing to her better sense. Thought about reminding her who agents really are and that it's impossible to pass through their "gate". I thought of a lot of comebacks.

I stayed silent.

There's truth in Shakespeare's line from Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much." If she and I were having a private conversation, that would be one thing. But I didn't need a 93,000-way conversation. I didn't need a pile-on that would have only made matters worse; that would have chimed in to reinforce her opinion. I've got enough troubles trying to sell books.

Her comment was hurtful because it was so dismissive. I wonder if she's ever read a self-published book, or if she read one that was bad and decided they all must be bad. 

"Literature as a commodity" is an ignorant statement. If only literature that doesn't sell is considered worthwhile, I'm a literary genius! She should read my novel. It's only sold a handful of copies---she'd love it! "Only paintings that no one buys are worth the canvas they're painted on." What? "Only music no one listens to is truly great." That's not how it works, lady! Every artist would kill to have their work considered a commodity.

I guess she intuited that she'd hurt my feelings, because she went back to my response and "liked" it after she posted about gatekeepers. I don't care. I don't play those games and I don't respect anyone who does. Don't equivocate. Stand by what you said. If all 93,000 of your followers don't buy my novel, nothing in my life will have changed. No one's buying it now.  

I will note, however, that Andy Weir self-published The Martian, after every literary agent passed on it. Oops, I forgot---his work is a commodity, which makes it bad. I bet he's crying about that as I write this.