Louis Shalako
It took a lot to get me to quit reading blog posts and
informed opinions on the subject of writing, books, stories, publishing, and the industry.
At first, it was a learning experience. The truth is
that I did learn something. I learned a lot.
There is a point of rapidly
diminishing returns. People are pretty good at writing provocative titles, and
some of it was clearly click-bait. Some of it was from long-time industry
professionals.
Therein lay the danger.
At some point, I got really tired of reading about an
industry that has never taken any real notice of me. I got tired of promoting
folks who were never going to give me the RT. They were never going to invite
me to be in a box set with them. They were never going to give me a blurb, a
guest-post, or a mention. The featured book at the bottom of their blog was
never going to be mine, and it seemed that I had worked very hard to be their
minion, just another doormat on the stairway to their own personal heaven.
I looked up to those people, admired them, liked them,
listened to them, hung on every word sometimes, all in the rather vain hope
that there was some golden nugget of wisdom in there that might help me to
crack this code.
We’ve all seen some fatuous non-issues, blown out of
all proportion by sophomoric, high-school immaturity. The only good thing is
that they’re easy to spot.
Do I love books? I always found that a nonsensical
question.
Do you have to read a lot to be an author? Gee, why would anybody think that?
What is an author? Will ebooks destroy western
literature? What is a real author, who does not have the right to call
themselves an author, and what about all the unedited books on Amazon?
Basically, I’ve just had enough. Even then, I kept
going. It was a kind of reassurance—like bumping into an old friend. There was
some level of emotional connection there.
It took some real, bitter disappointment to cut them
off entirely. I had to get angry with myself, for allowing myself to be taken
in. To drop my own plan, my own theories and start following their crock of
shit advice.
The trouble is when some of the advice isn’t really
relevant. And yet the person writing has such credibility. It’s persuasive, and
you feel they’re talking directly to you.
It is the relationship that we crave, and ultimately,
it is one that fails because it’s not a relationship at all. It is an illusion.
It’s just another click-farm, when you get right down to it.
To tell me for the nine-hundredth time that in order
to succeed, ‘first, write a good book,’ and for the nine-hundredth time, ‘get a
professionally-made cover,’ does not do me any good if I am not in a position
to take that advice. After twenty years on an Ontario Disability Support
Program pension, I am in no position to do anything.
Most books are actually pretty good. Most of them are
not brilliant. That is just the way it is.
I got tired of people saying that authors can’t spell,
don’t have good grammar, can’t proofread, can’t format their own books, can’t
lay out a cover, can’t promote, you must do that, you must do this, and you
must do something else. Oh, and here’s one thousand, one hundred and
thirty-seven MUST HAVE TOOLS FOR AUTHORS. And oh, yeah, you must spend
thousands of dollars on your book if you ever want to have any hope of
succeeding in this industry.
What an untalented bunch of pretentious, semi-literate boobs we must be, eh?
I’m no longer reading anything at all that has to do
with this industry, ladies and gentlemen, and maybe it’s just time we accepted
that fact.
But reading the same shit over and over again was too
much for me. At this point in time, there are certain websites that I may never
go back to again. It’s a little vow I have taken. I know exactly what I’m going
to find. Advice that I can’t take, advice that is just plain wrong for my
circumstances, and advice that starts off with a certain set of assumptions
that in the longer term did more harm than good.
Don’t think that’s not personal, because it is.
You’ve taken all the joy out of something that used to
be fun.
Screw you.
END
There might be some free books here if the reader would care to take a look.
