Bad Books: Or, A Paean of Praise for the Hated Gatekeeper

OK, it's time to stop hating the "gatekeepers"--if you haven't already. 
In fact, it's long past time to quit hating on them. 
Because what we've got by sidestepping the gatekeepers now is a whole swackload of really, really bad books out there. Books that are taking our money and giving us dreck in return.

Now, don't get me wrong. We've always had that swackload, in various quantities, floating around. It's been out there from the first days writers have tried to break down the doors of publishing houses and slip their "babies" in.  The difference between that previous condition and what we have now, however, is that now that swackload is publishing themselves, or getting published by small or indie presses...and the result is, shall we say, underwhelming.

OK, let's cut to the chase. It's awful.

CAVEAT: Do not construe this in any way as a generic slam against indie and/or small presses.  Do not put those words in my mouth; I'll spit 'em right back at you, with barbs attached. I'm published with small presses myself. I love small presses for many reasons--as long as they do as good a job with their own "gatekeepers" in place as the big monoliths do.

Trouble is...most times, they don't.
I hate saying this. I really hate saying this.
But, unfortunately, it increasingly is the truth. 
And it makes a bunch of people in the publishing business look like babbling fools.

The "hatred" of the so-called gatekeepers isn't really anything new. Those first readers, agents, assistants, and others who kept our "darlings" from seeing the true decision-makers in publishing have been maligned for ages.  They've been called petty, small-minded drones whose only concern is the bottom line. They've been called ignoramuses who wouldn't know great literature if it walked up and bit them in the neck. They've been called these, and other more unsavory things--once again--since the first writer tried to slip a Magnum Opus, scribbled in crayon on the back of an envelope, over the proverbial transom or under the proverbial door.  Why?  Because they stopped those Magnum Opera from ever getting near a publishing committee...and therefore, near a paying public.  And many, many, many times, that was a splendid and selfless thing to do.

Why splendid? Because when we saw a book get published in the past, we knew--or at least we could be fairly certain--that the book itself would meet certain minimum criteria. It would have a degree of readability. It would have basic conventions of grammar, spelling, punctuation, et al, generally observed and would make a degree of sense (James Joyce notwithstanding). It would, in short, be something that--odds are--not only met a basic benchmark of clarity and comprehensibility but was worth spending a few bucks and a few hours on. We may not fall in love with every book we bought, but at least we wouldn't feel like someone had robbed us of money or time under false colors.

And why selfless? Check out the pay scales for those gatekeepers, and that'll speak for itself. The great majority of editors in big houses begin as assistants to assistants and work their way up. Which means that their starting pay, if five of them room together in an apartment, might get them a decent place without bars on the windows, graffiti on the walls, or shots echoing around the neighborhood at night. Maybe. If you're one of the few people left in the world who really thinks  that "working in publishing" means you have a private windowed office overlooking the Hudson and/or Empire State Building, a great little "flat" in Soho or Chelsea or the Upper East/West Side, and that you spend the majority of your day with your feet propped up reading great stuff, in between schmoozing with name authors and agents and discovering the Next Big Thing...

Excuse me. I need to stop snorting now.

But despite these aspects of their trade, which most of them plied without complaint or (much) cussing, these first readers, assistants, and the like have taken a lot of abuse from outsiders in the industry. You know the type: they're the ones screaming about "artistic freedom" and "innovation" and bemoaning the "cookie cutter" aspects of publishing.  

The flip side? Much of what they say is, unfortunately, true. Publishing is by and large not run by people who love books; it's run by people who look at books as "product" (which they are) that should turn a profit (which it should!)...and less as artistic achievement--or, as Randy Ingermanson so wonderfully puts it, "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius."

But the resulting "publishing" climate that has grown out of this urge for new, fresh, innovative, and "creative" hasn't resulted in what these people have claimed to want, either. Yes, it's resulted in a more "level playing field." But are arts really about everyone competing on a "level playing field"? Are they even supposed to be?

I would submit that no, they're not.

Arts are not democracies. They never were meant to be that in the first place. Yes, everyone should participate in artistic and creative endeavors. But there still has to be a quality-control system in place so that little Johnny, sawing away on a Suzuki mini-violin, isn't afforded the same performing venue as Itzhak Perlman.  He simply hasn't earned it yet, no matter how many participation ribbons his proud parents put up on the wall. He's got years ahead of him to continue to learn the art. To refine it. To understand its nuances, its conventions, its "rules" and its boundaries. If he chooses to break out of any of those things before the time is right, he won't sound brilliant; he'll simply sound unpracticed and unprepared. And no amount of validation of his early efforts will change the fact that, as far as true art is concerned, he's simply not ready. He won't provide a rich musical experience. He may provide an exciting one, a promising one, or an unusual one--but just as likely, he'll simply provide noise.

And noise, no matter how you disguise it, cloak it, label it, or package it, is not music.
Just as "published," no matter how you cloak it, label it, or package it, no longer is any guarantee that a book is ready for public consumption. 

But nothing is more apparent in our present publishing climate than a swackload of these not-ready-for-prime-time books  getting out there and pretending to be ready.
And their authors truly think they are. No one, after all, gets up in the morning and says, "Today I'm gonna write a really awful book." So they create, without many "rules" and without any "gatekeepers," and they put it out there...truly believing that no one has the "right" to tell them that it's not ready yet.

Well, guess what?
That notion is wrong.
Someone does  have the "right" to tell you that you may not be ready yet.
That someone is a gatekeeper. In the case of the arts, it's a teacher, it's a coach, it's a performance jury, or the like. In the case of publishing, it's still a first reader, an assistant, an associate editor, an agent...or whatever title the gatekeeper goes by.

Yes, gatekeepers can make mistakes. And sometimes, especially nowadays, gatekeepers aren't as well-trained as they used to be (partly due to that pesky "level playing field" notion that leads people to think "anyone can do this"). 

But as they move up in experience and savvy, they won't make anywhere near as egregious a mistake as many, many authors, self-publishers, and small publishers are making nowadays in pushing inferior, badly written, and error-ridden stuff into the marketplace.

Folks who hate the "gatekeepers" are fond of telling us, "Don't worry, the market will correct itself. Those books simply won't sell."
Guess what? 
That's wrong, too.
Because the public--even a discerning public--can't tell the difference between a book that looks ready to go and one that actually is.  Some of these books are amazingly disguised. Some of them have great cover art, and almost all of them have superb reviews posted online. The brutal truth is, however, that  most of them cannot begin to live up to either.  

So how is "the marketplace" gonna correct that one?
And when is it gonna start?

I would submit that we already had a pretty good preventive system in place.
Certainly it wasn't always "fair," and certainly it could become hidebound and downright idiotic in what it pursued.
(It still is, at times.)

But at least it was fairer than subjecting consumers like me to thousands and thousands of books that all claim to be ready, all will take my money...and in the end, will rob me of both money and time by being anywhere from merely boring to unspeakably bad.
Those books wouldn't have gotten past gatekeepers in the past.
They didn't deserve to.
They still don't.
And in this way, then, the  "experiment" has failed.

How do we fix this?
And which of you strident "anti-gatekeeper" folks is willing to underwrite my next few purchases, so that I can support this Brave New World of deserving writers without getting fleeced by all the ones out there who may as well have put masks on before they sold me their shoddy merchandise?

Thoughts?
Janny 

A Fool and His Money...

...or her money, as the case may be, often part company in the name of "publishing." And yes, ladies and gentlemen, we will soon get another chance to part with our money if we so desire, just for the privilege of calling ourselves "published" authors.

Cheryl Dickow, a Catholic nonfiction author, has just started a new venture called Bezalel Books, offering the opportunity for Catholic fiction writers to have another place and outlet for their manuscripts. She (rightfully) bemoans the lack of a Catholic presence in inspirational fiction, which is presently pretty much dominated by the Prod end of things...something many of us Catholic girls have been complaining about for awhile. :-) However, what she proposes to do about it is...shall we say...less than enthralling.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, for the small price of $775, give or take a few other charges that will no doubt creep into the mix, you can sidestep all the "traditional" publishing headaches, avoid paying an agent a commission to get you into the Big Bad World of Real Books...and publish your book through this new press.

Self-publish, that is. As in, pay her to do the publication for you.

If I've never said it before on this blog, it bears saying here: the fundamental principle of publishing is MONEY GOES TO THE AUTHOR. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

Please understand, self-publishing is not inherently evil. Some books start out self-published and then are picked up by regular publishers after they've proven to sell. (Self-publishers are quick to trot out those titles, so with a little research, you'll find them.) And many books are self-published for good reasons. A very happy self-published author I know said, "Hey, I've got the money, I just want the thrill of having real books in my hands, my friends and neighbors all buy these, we have a good time. I'm happy."

For him, self-publishing works. He spends an average of $1500 per book to get the things out there--ridiculously steep in terms of anyone thinking of actually supporting themselves by writing, in any degree--but he's retired, he has the cash and nothing else he'd rather spend it on, so God bless him.

Another book I'm familiar with is a good example of another great use of self-publishing. The author probably had a good idea his target audience--primarily college baseball players!-- wouldn't necessarily be a large enough market segment for a major publisher to want to take on his book. I've read parts of the book. It's well written, it's an accurate portrayal of what college baseball is about, and I get a kick out of it because it's focused on the University of Michigan Baseball team as it was composed when my son was a member of said team. (My son even is a character in the book, albeit fictionalized and disguised, as are the other teammates of this particular author. Gotta love it.)

For that type of use, for that focus, self-publishing is a perfect solution. But for the rest of us? Not so much. At least not if we have a dream of being paid for our work, even if that payment is small.
Or if we have a dream of establishing a readership in any meaningful channels.
Or if we have a hope of being considered worth investing in for a major (or even minor) publisher someday.

Because if we have dreams and hopes of being published by a major house, paid anything at all, or having our books actually available for our friends and neighbors to buy--without having to sell them literally out of our garages--we definitely should not go the self-publishing route.Because, contrary to the claims on most of these sites, it's not easier to do the self-pub route; it's harder.

Most self-publishers will charge you more for actually editing the book.
Many of them have steep art charges if you don't have a cover designed yourself.
Many of them have small staffs with very limited resources, so if you need something done or redone quickly, it just isn't going to happen.
But the biggest drawback to self-publishing, by far, is the lack of distribution channels.

You see, it's not getting the book published that gets your name out into the marketplace. It's getting the book read. And bought.

Which means, your success as a published author isn't contingent on what it costs to print the book, or even what it costs you to get a cover made, to correct errors, and to get it bound attractively and legibly. Your success as a published author strictly depends on whether you can get your books into bookstores. Or whether people can order copies of your book through online or other channels. Or both. And that's where the self-publishing promises break down.

Self-published authors too often learn after the fact, and to their pain, that a promise that their book will be "available" for sale through Barnes &Noble, or Borders, or Books A Million...doesn't mean the book will actually be on the shelves. Most of the time, the book will not be there. The great majority of the time, the book will not even be listed in the computer systems of these bookstores. And if it ain't in the computer, boys and girls, you average bookstore clerk isn't going to be able to order it for you.

So in reality, while your book may be "available" to these places, it's not going to be ordered by them. If it's not ordered, in reality, it's not there. And won't be, because the great majority of self-publishing outlets have no network of distributors. They have no distribution channels in place. Most of them don't even have contacts in the industry that they can then tap and say, "Hey, I've got 20 great novels for you to take into the marketplace."

Which means you have no means of getting the book into the hands of readers.
Which means you will, in essence, have no readers...unless you do all the distribution yourself.

Some authors have tried a variation on this, by the way. There are "drive by" authors out there who'll do things like place their book on bookstore shelves. Just put it there. Some of them have even told tales of getting their books "put into" the computer systems at major bookstores that way, because the clerks don't know any better, just assume the book wasn't listed in error, and put all the ISBN information, etc., into their databases.

On the surface, this sounds pretty clever. A little guerilla marketing, as it were. Forcing them to acknowledge the book exists, and then giving them the means to reorder it.
The only problem is, that doesn't work.
Oh, a few authors may have had this actually turn in their favor. But then they went online and spread the word that "all you have to do is..." and a lot more people started trying to do this. Bookstores got wise to it. Clerks got wise to it. And those books got, respectfully, tossed.

They didn't get bought. They didn't get inventoried. They most certainly didn't get put into the databases. What's worse, the authors and their publishers were flagged for later reference...and not in a nice way, either.

So where's the win here? Answer? There isn't one. Your literal only alternative as a self-published author is to sell the books yourself.
If you have a speaking platform, this is a little easier. If you're affiliated with a university, this sometimes is easier (although don't try it without asking, because if anything, universities are even pricklier than major bookstores when it comes to "contraband"--i.e., something published other than via a university press!-- coming from one of their own). If you are like that guy in the video with the FREE HUGS sign, and you have no problem approaching complete strangers by the hundreds with books in your hand and a pitch on your lips, then maybe self-publishing, and its associated self-distribution, is for you.

But for most of us? Again, not so much.
Not even because most writers tend to be introverts, which is reason enough for most of us to crawl under our desks in the fetal position at the very thought of "marketing" and "distribution" like that....but also because, let's face it. Traveling the world to distribute a self-published book can get...shall we say...a little pricey. As in expensive. As in, expenses you may or may not ever recover from book sales, and probably won't.

So the moral of the story? If you have cash to spend, don't mind how you spend it, and don't care if you ever sell beyond 40 copies to your sisters and your cousins and your aunts...and you're fed up with the cycle of writing, revising, submitting, getting rejected, resubmitting, revising and re-revising, tinkering, pitching, etc., etc., etc...self-publishing may be the way you want to go with a novel. Otherwise, you'll want to refer back to the basic principle of the publishing industry--money goes to the author--and play the game in such a way that someone's willing to take your work and pay you for it.

Because that same someone will also make sure the book comes out with no misspellings in it (up to and including your name), has a cover that doesn't repel a reader, and has all the pages included, right-side up and in the proper order.
Because that same someone will have an editor who will (if you're fortunate) improve the book for you and make it sing, someone who knows what you're trying to say and helps you say it better.
And most of all, because that someone actually knows how to get those books into the marketplace so readers can read them, and love them, and recommend them to all their sisters and their cousins and their aunts.

Why? Because that someone will have already invested money in the operation, and they want to at least recoup some of that money. So they'll make it their business to at least do a minimum amount of publicity, and pitching their distributors, so they can make that happen...or they won't stay in business long.

Take the high road, folks. It's better for all of us in the long run.

My take,
Janny