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Sept. 11, 2005 Writing is a difficult matter when one thinks about the hoops of publishing one’s work. Even if one is not writing to be published, it is still a difficult matter. The writer points his prose to an intended audience, e.g., fiction lovers, nonfiction lovers, horror lovers, history lovers, humor lovers, etc. Writers try with all of their might to tell their story. They work on audience, character development, grammar, a good hook, and plot development. All these things and more are things a writer tries to whip into a readable book. As I see it, and many others I am sure, today’s market is so saturated with newcomers that publishing becomes tsunami-like. Most novice writers are over-looked by the large publishing houses leaving them in a zone of self-publishing. Writers unfortunately are single-minded in their craft. In other words, it is their desire to write. Most writers (and I say this with only anecdotal knowledge) are good at what they do and want to spend their time creating stories. They are not publishers, editors, marketers, salespersons, printers, and financial backers. Publishing houses might, maybe, choose two or three new writers a year. They do so, with the hope of “discovering” a new voice from the writing wilderness. Rarely, is such a voice discovered. All of these realities leave the writer standing in a no-fly zone. Do they want to attempt self-publishing? Do they want to try the Print-On-Demand companies out there (and there are many)? There are many alternatives to the big publishers, self-publishing, self-marketing, self-distribution, and self-promotion. Unfortunately each of these options costs money and require time. Guess what? Most novice writers have neither. Hence the door is opened to such predators as Publish America. They offer hope, a real book, no cost to the writer, and a possible readership. All of which, we have discovered on Useless Knowledge and other forums, generally are empty promises. Publish America in fact makes tons of money from the writers and the writers’ families who want to see their “writer” member’s work in print. They can sit the book on their home bookshelf and say, “This is our Uncle Micky’s new novel.”
The future for new writers is probably still going to be a bleak one. Of course, I cannot see into the future. If I could, I would probably stop writing, but my feeling is that there will be new scams similar to Publish America being developed as I speak. Writers are a sensitive lot. They want to be read (no matter what they say about writing for pleasure). Writers write because they are storytellers and what good is a storyteller if he/she has no audience. I can’t imagine sitting around an open fire and not having someone pop up with a story. They give a little pinprick to the fingers of their readers.
Writers are the fireside storytellers in a world of reality. They carry us beyond reality sometimes.
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