Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
No, it's what happens when what you write isn't subjected to serious professional editing. If Lynn Shepherd had submitted the piece to a major newspaper instead of Huffington Post, they would have protected her from herself.
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I don't know about that. A lot of newspapers today are at the same level as the Huffington Post - or lower.
If the author of that article meant it to be sarcastic, then she was unable to disguise her underlying envy. If Rowling stopped publishing today, there is no guarantee that Shepherd's books would get a second look or have better sales than they are now having.
It ultimately comes down to whether or not people find an author's books interesting. If they do, then they spread that information by word-of-mouth and online posts, if they don't then the author's works fall by the wayside.
Rowling managed to catch a genre wave and have a good ride from it. Her books turned a lot of kids and adults into readers. I'm not going to knock that, because that's good for the industry as a whole, if not particularly for Lynn Shepherd.
I haven't read Rowling's books and have no interest in doing so, so her forays into the fantasy and crime fiction arenas haven't impacted my life, my wallet, or my reading choices one way or another.
I would imagine that a lot of authors might be jealous over Rowling's almost obscene success but are afraid to come out and say so - so Shepherd probably said what a lot of them might be thinking: "why her and not me?".