A
writer is an odd enough thing without the added difficulty of trying to
describe it. However, since I’ve written myself into this position… A burrower among sentences, a bird perching
on shaky syntax, a pounder, punter and ponderer of language, a
grammar-stricken, punctuation-bitten, typo-ridden oaf…. There’s a lot to be said
for being a plumber.
That’s
just the basics of writing anything. However “brilliant”, the capacity to
create an unreadable mess is inherent, and the odds increase with volume.
Unlike other media, except perhaps music, every element in a written bit of
text is subject to criticism, unfortunately sometimes by people who know what
they’re talking about. Far more appallingly, they know what you’re writing
about, too. It’s quite unfair.
In
the absence of law, and any democratic opportunity for taking out a restraining
order on oneself, writers write. In this health-conscious environment, there is the added blessing of the literary
industry, compared to which the Pharaohs were models of restraint. This epic
creator of inventories and innuendo has done more to prevent people reading or
writing than the most illiterate teacher or banal mediums. By comparison, the
most bizarre rituals, and incestuously Byzantine organizations are mere amateur hobbies.
This
fact had occurred, several times, to the subject of this story, a writer whose
genetic loathing of the mundane was a frequent topic in his stories. He was
unable to enthuse about the general principles of writing which could be
described as “John and Betty Get It On… Eventually”, a 400 page, X
number of words, incision into the wild eroticism of suburban folklore. He had
some perverse objection to writing celebrity biographies, and an even more
misanthropic objection to writing crime novels about fascinating mass murderers
and pedophiles. He had no social skills, really. He was a conceptual misfit,
and proud of it.
The
main problem with being a writer and a conceptual misfit, simultaneously, is
the irritating need to eat. A brief thought of buttering the rejection slips
did occur to him, but they didn’t fry very well. Candied, they were somewhat better,
but not quite a steak. As his portfolio of material grew, his tolerance for
these self indulgences reduced, and he just threw out the rejection slips.
One
of the more insidious things about writing is that as you write, there’s a real
risk that you’ll insist on thinking. That greatly increases the danger of
saying what you think, and even incurs some possibility of understanding it
yourself. Wading through the text for the fifth time, one suddenly encounters
an idea, perhaps more than one, in the same book. It’s ghastly, really it is…
This
was the terrible metaphysical trap into which the writer had blundered. By pure
accident, he knew what he thought, and why he thought it. A relative rarity in modern times, where the
human media are preferred to be mere inputs and outputs on the Great Motherboard,
he was considered odd, even by other writers.
Nevertheless,
he’d managed to get a few readers, and bulldozed his way onto a few websites,
so one innocent day, the sun rose, and he was invited in to a discussion about Literature
In The Media. Not because he was popular, but because he was easier, and
safer, to contact. Experts are many, those that are on speaking terms with the
producers, rare. As a relative unknown he was considered infinitely preferable
to the large number of experts who despised the producer, and were inclined to
mention the fact on air for weeks on end.
The
panel was stuffed with the usual effluvia, odd forms of “life” like actual
publishers, writers, critics, market psychologists, sales experts, and even a
person who read books. A good all round view of something, anyway. In an
ultramodern, and therefore garish, studio, with a bright yellow set, the panel
learned to use chairs and sit up straight as the host arrived. This was a set of
well dressed teeth and a monosyllabic vocabulary, receiving hundreds of
thousands of dollars per show. A former game show host, the smell lingered.
The
publishers, enticing things with a look of advanced spiritual and intellectual
dilapidation, were asked their views on the future of literature. A hearty enema of comments about “pushing
envelopes” and “expanding paradigms” and “our children’s future” and the rest
of the usual eulogy ensued. The sales
deities were then invoked, and a refreshing series of statements from
spreadsheets established that they were doing quite nicely, thank you.
The
market psychologists were less restrained. A whole concept of human life, based
on reading bestsellers, was created, in a mere 20 minutes. They’d even heard of
the internet. It was solemnly proclaimed that one day people who used the
internet would read books, too, perhaps in some sort of abridged form, which
could be sold at higher prices to people who didn’t know any better.
The
host told his joke, and everyone felt much better. It was as if the Renaissance
had dropped in to say hello. An inspiring sight it was, the intelligentsia of
the day, sturdy pallbearers of human culture, chuckling at a line from an
autocue. The host didn’t understand the joke, and was therefore able to deliver
it deadpan. There had been some talk of explaining the joke to him, but the
majority opinion was against it.
The
next offering in this smorgasbord of smarm was the person who read books. Just
to be clear on the status of this person, should anyone think reading books is
contagious, he’d accidentally filled in an online survey, admitting he read
books. It wasn’t intentional. This over-stimulated person confessed to reading,
and stated that one of the versions of
“John and Betty Get It On… Eventually”, was the best book ever
written. One of the publishers remembered hearing about it somewhere, and
agreed that it must be good. The sales people enthused happily, and the
marketing psychologists said it was good to see that real people were reading
about real life.[1]
Then-
the writers. There were only two of them, but there was a lot of time left,
even the previous speakers being unable to extend clichés indefinitely. The
other writer wrote John and Betty books, and expressed his predictable
admiration for the book, and went on to say that he hoped that he would one day
write something that good, and that all was well with the world. Frantic
gestures from the director meant nothing to this savant, and he fell silent.
There were 15 minutes left. The host, veteran of many flaccid media events, was
a little worried, but was sure he could cow-prod something out of the remaining
panelist.
He
didn’t get the chance. The writer, let out of his career-cage, snarled:
“The
publishing industry is a geriatric rest home for middle management. Everything
about it is for the benefit of management and middlemen. There are endless
processes, just to get anything read. We produce the material that makes them
millions, and we barely even get a postcard.
There
are submission formats that make a
ship’s bill of lading look like a kid’s coloring book. Formats, margins, text,
fonts… you can read for hours what your submission is supposed to be. Then you
have to write a “proposal”, meaning do their work for them, tell them who the
market is, and how you, not they, intend to promote it.
This
small encyclopedia is then sent to someone with the corporate status of a
janitor. A person told to go and find “John and Betty Get It On… Eventually”,
in whatever form. Everything else will
be rejected, and that really is that.
Publishers
no longer condescend to even speak to authors. A writer must go and find an
agent, and that agent has to be able to get the attention of a publisher. Which
means that about half of all agents are utterly useless… Quite aside from the fact that they’re a unknown third
party you have to trust with your intellectual property. Ever hear of an easier
way to rip off a story?”
He
stared at the publishers.
“You’re
paying for this. You’re paying a fortune. Your real business is production and
marketing. Everything else might as well be outsourced, because nobody’s
actually doing anything useful. Any document can just be submitted as pure
text, and any child could format it anyway they like. Writers try and write a finished
product, not “For The Purposes Of Editing A La 1950”.
What
is actually achieved? You spend years to even look at a new product. It’s
ancient, from a writer’s perspective, before you even look at it. If you’ve
been fool enough to write about anything current, it’s out of date. What do
these people do, that’s worth the kind of money you spend, on not
publishing? Books can be published electronically in seconds. You’re taking
years.
You
also take on the costs of hard copy, returned books, shelf time, inventory
time, accountancy, corporate returns, on things that just don’t sell. The
entire process of publishing is one long bit of cost analysis. Add the year or
so of bureaucracy, and you have a joke, not an industry.
Why
are you actively promoting methodologies that were out of date in 1995? Why are
you trying to sell “John and Betty Get It On… Eventually”, to a planet
full of people with multiple degrees… you know, the ones who can actually read?
Because that’s what your bureaucracy has been buying. If nothing sells, the
entire process has been a waste of time for everybody.
Shakespeare
didn’t have an agent, or a publishing bureaucrat doing the editing. Nor did any
of the other great writers. Now, a few hundred years later, what do we get? A
mass of typos for $29.95, on truly cruddy paper, in eight point font. Suitable
for causing eyestrain, and not much else.
You
ask your staff, the ones who are doing the screening, what a proofreader is,
and I’ll bet you now that half of them don’t know. Then see how good their own spelling and grammar is, on internal
documents. Non-existent, usually, and you might have noticed that for
yourselves…
You’re
so keen on agents; they can do all that for you. They have to, anyway, to sell
the stuff they handle. You could have hundreds of dedicated agents, on a
standard contract, doing your screening.
They could have multiple publishers for clients, doing their
specialties. You’d get nothing but professional standard work to consider. The
quality would have to be good, because it defines their own profitability.
Agents also don’t have to incur the overheads you guys have inflicted on
yourselves. Literary agents do, normally, know their stuff. They can just tell
the writer what’s needed, and the writer, strangely enough, can do all that
faster than anyone else, and with a lot more attention to detail. You’d save
millions in-house, on administration alone, and a lot more on the actual setup
stuff for printing.
Writers
would be able to pick and choose agents, based on some sort of known factor and
performance, beyond just “having to have an agent”. Agents could have their own
networks, with two-way information if they find something someone else could
use. Much less wasted time, for everyone, particularly writers, who really do
have better things to do than play Post Office.
The
current setup doesn’t work because it’s terrible time management and it’s incredibly
extravagant with overheads. All you really need is production, which is on
contract anyway, and accounts, which can be outsourced. Sales, you need to be in-house, but that’s it. You’d
only need a small number of quality controllers otherwise, because all the rest
has already been done by the time you see it.”
The publishers
had a remote look in their eyes. That look spoke of financial statements, wild
and free. Of frolicking publishers, able to say wonderful things to corporate
boardrooms. Of cost-cutting exercises so bloodthirsty that no mere mortal mind
might maunder, morosely macabre, thereupon.
Of the screams of many fat, unsightly, unwanted cost centers, suddenly
dismembered. Of the savings on office space, and the end to eternal answering
of the same questions, from timid, apologetic, gargoyles.
The
writer smiled.