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Worldwalker · 10-28-2010, 01:37 PM

But it does, apparently, make its participants ready and willing victims for the "give us money and call yourself an author" scams known as vanity presses. *sigh* For that matter, remember the old "Library of Poetry"? I sent them a poem once that was, of course, a semi-finalist ... that a friend and I generated by computer (I think it was some bits of 18th-century poems recombined at random; it's been a while). They went well beyond bad and into scary.

What's kind of depressing is that there's a story I might some day pay to have printed. It's not going to sell to a publisher because it's not marketable; I knew that when I started writing. It's just something stuck in my head that I need to get out. But if I do decide to pay someone else to make a hardcopy of it (POD, most likely), I'll know what I'm doing going in. It'll be something I want to spend money on for the fun of actually having it sit on my shelf, much like I buy lottery tickets or fancy meals, rather than because I think anyone but me will ever actually want to read it. The deluded people like this NaNoWriMo author pay to get their books "published" and think they've actually done something -- and it's something that "real" authors do. It reminds me a bit of those photography tours where they pose a tame critter for you, and tell you exactly where to stand, what camera settings to use, etc., and then you can tell people you took that picture, just like the other twenty people who were with you ... and you pay through the nose for it.

The level of self-delusion required in the case of the photographers is disturbing; in the case of the writers, I think the vanity press does most of the deluding. The ones I've talked to know little or nothing about how publishing works, and what they know (or think they know) comes straight from the vanity press. And, of course, they're all "too special" or "too unique" for publishers. Well, yeah, their treatment of the English language is generally "special" ... and not in a good way. But as for their "special" books, they're usually either whacked-out conspiracy theories that nobody with two brain cells to rub together can take seriously (see xkcd 808) or poorly-written biographies that nobody but their family members (if even them) would want anything to do with. Oh, and there was one who persisted in perpetrating fantasy novels that could put you to sleep even if you were mainlining Red Bull; can't forget him.

I think it says something about today's society: everyone thinks -- knows -- that they have something to say. But they've never considered whether it's something that anyone else on the face of the Earth actually wants to hear. So they say ... they write ... they scream into hurricanes ... but nobody's listening, because what they have to say is interesting to themselves and themselves alone.

10-28-2010, 01:37 PM	#5
Worldwalker Curmudgeon Posts: 3,085 Karma: 722357 Join Date: Feb 2010 Device: PRS-505	But it does, apparently, make its participants ready and willing victims for the "give us money and call yourself an author" scams known as vanity presses. sigh For that matter, remember the old "Library of Poetry"? I sent them a poem once that was, of course, a semi-finalist ... that a friend and I generated by computer (I think it was some bits of 18th-century poems recombined at random; it's been a while). They went well beyond bad and into scary. What's kind of depressing is that there's a story I might some day pay to have printed. It's not going to sell to a publisher because it's not marketable; I knew that when I started writing. It's just something stuck in my head that I need to get out. But if I do decide to pay someone else to make a hardcopy of it (POD, most likely), I'll know what I'm doing going in. It'll be something I want to spend money on for the fun of actually having it sit on my shelf, much like I buy lottery tickets or fancy meals, rather than because I think anyone but me will ever actually want to read it. The deluded people like this NaNoWriMo author pay to get their books "published" and think they've actually done something -- and it's something that "real" authors do. It reminds me a bit of those photography tours where they pose a tame critter for you, and tell you exactly where to stand, what camera settings to use, etc., and then you can tell people you took that picture, just like the other twenty people who were with you ... and you pay through the nose for it. The level of self-delusion required in the case of the photographers is disturbing; in the case of the writers, I think the vanity press does most of the deluding. The ones I've talked to know little or nothing about how publishing works, and what they know (or think they know) comes straight from the vanity press. And, of course, they're all "too special" or "too unique" for publishers. Well, yeah, their treatment of the English language is generally "special" ... and not in a good way. But as for their "special" books, they're usually either whacked-out conspiracy theories that nobody with two brain cells to rub together can take seriously (see xkcd 808) or poorly-written biographies that nobody but their family members (if even them) would want anything to do with. Oh, and there was one who persisted in perpetrating fantasy novels that could put you to sleep even if you were mainlining Red Bull; can't forget him. I think it says something about today's society: everyone thinks -- knows -- that they have something to say. But they've never considered whether it's something that anyone else on the face of the Earth actually wants to hear. So they say ... they write ... they scream into hurricanes ... but nobody's listening, because what they have to say is interesting to themselves and themselves alone.