Writers Helping Writers Helping Others

Yes, I know. It's been a while. Quiet down. I'm here now, aren't I? Anyway, I have a couple of pimping promotional duties to attend to, awkwardly constructed blog post title notwithstanding.

First off, the indefatigable Morgen Bailey featured me in her latest author spotlight, and for her pains received a volley of flagrant, barefaced lies. I really shouldn't be allowed out. You don't have to read it. Not only do you get a very shady bio, but you get my muddled, opinionated drivel about genre versus literary, a completely inessential way to pass this Fourth of July.

Coincidentally, I am (we are) also featured on the website RABMAD, which is a handy acronym for Read A Book, Make A Difference. The site showcases writers whose books contribute in some way to a cause or charity, which is why they graciously chose to feature Seasons. Since there are four authors, none of whom is predominant (even the order on the book's cover is not only chronological but also alphabetical, whether you use first or last names), RABMAD will feature each one individually when they collate all the info.

Well, that's it, I think. Leaves me with a last big shoutout to everyone (like Morgen Bailey and Rob Guthrie) who selflessly promotes writers on their websites. Your tireless work is appreciated even during those fraught moments we forget to say thank you.

A Nurturance Deficit

Stand well back, writer about to brag...

"What a beautiful and touching piece. You have a gift for creating vibrant images and feelings. I was swept away by your physical and emotional journey after the devastation of the 9/11 attacks and appreciated your keen observations about the landscape and the feelings of the people around you. We are very excited to offer Dissolute Kinship a Grub Street Reads Endorsement and to add your work to the official Grub Street Reads library."

So writes Jessica Bennett of Grub Street Reads in her ringing endorsement of my book.

Deeming my work meets the standard in the following categories:

✓ Plot

✓ Characters

✓ Pace

✓ Accurcacy

✓ Grammar/Layout

✓ Overall Assessment

Grub Street Reads not only accepted and endorsed it, they added it to their Grub Street Greats category ("the books we couldn't put down"), an honour only afforded five books out of some forty novels they've endorsed so far.

Now, the whole concept of endorsements has come under scrutiny lately, and I even poked fun at it myself, but I can say in all honesty that no money changed hands between myself and the people who run that site, so I will take the praise and try to turn it into more sales. The question still remains, however: are we replacing the old gatekeepers with yet more gatekeepers? Is the new world order of publishing in danger of succumbing to some of the same pitfalls that befell the old model? While we debate this, however, we still need to get our books into the hands of readers, so I will use any legal and ethical means possible in order to do that.

Writers, huh? I swear most of us weren't breastfed or something. So needy are we that our knees go weak whenever someone with an opinion even glances in our direction. Sigh. As long as we're not tempted to part those knees, however, I suppose that's okay.

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David Antrobus also writes for Indies Unlimited and BlergPop. Be sure to check out his work there if you like what you read here.

A Titanic Struggle

This will be a short rant, and if you think that's a contradiction in terms, or you're not in the mood for another soapbox oration, then fair play to you, but Imma do it anyway (and if you dislike the word "Imma", please know I feel your pain).

Briefly, and to state the fairly obvious to anyone paying attention to this topic, the sleek luxury liner world of writing and publishing has been impacted and upended by the hidden iceberg of new media and the digital revolution. The Titanic-like so-called Big Six publishing houses broke apart and are still slowly sinking as we speak. After some early and notable successes with epublishing, a gathering tide of new independent authors grabbed onto the flotsam and jetsam and headed for shore. It was and continues to be a dangerous but exhilarating journey.

Now, before its apparent demise, the Titanic was able to blast its horn on a global scale and nobody minded. It had impeccable staff and gatekeepers, directing authors and readers to their appropriate areas and even providing grooming (editing) and advocacy (marketing) services for the former. But now, without them, the individual authors doggie-paddling desperately in the icy waters must resort instead to scrawled messages on pieces of debris: "help me!" "don't let me drown!" "please read this!"

So, here we are. Many of those independent writers desperately trying to reach the shore, some having made it and dried off and been fed hot soup, but most still in the pitiless ocean, continue to need help if they are to survive. And yet, there are those who would deny them their right to call attention to themselves for reasons of what has come to be known as "shameless self-promotion".

Flawed analogies aside, what prompted this little outburst on my part is this idea that when a great number of small people promote their work, much of which is born of pain and sweat and long, dark nights of the soul—you know, work, right?—it is referred to as "spam" or even "gaming the system", yet when the sleek ocean liners of the world do it on a grand, monstrous scale, it's referred to as "advertising". Once again, why does the bulk of the moral opprobrium descend like freezing rain on the tiny, far more desperate swimmers and rarely on the monolithic giants? Because it's easier to pick on them? Safer? Have we really become such cowards?

Anyway, with more and more writers in sight of shore, clutching their makeshift signs and shivering in the dark, I worry about what we will do next—welcome them home or push them back out in the frigid waters?

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David Antrobus also writes for Indies Unlimited and BlergPop. Be sure to check out his work there if you like what you read here.