I've hit my limit.
I have weathered the worst of publishing for a year and a half now. I have slogged through Harlequin's insipid wastes of paper and megabytes, all colors of vampire fiction, blatantly unrealistic self-help, Republican Asshat Press, mind-blowingly misogynistic religious treatises, and boring nonfiction on the most obscure of historical minutiae, and yet I still arrive every morning and spend my day making sure these and other offenders are produced and distributed. But not today. Today I can take it no longer. Take heed, faithful audience (all three of you), for you are witnessing my Start of Darkness: in the co-opted words of one Dr. Horrible, the publishing world is a mess, and I just need to rule it.
I arrived at my breaking point today while entering metadata for one of our smaller clients, a romance publisher. While I won't call them by name, I will specify that while Harlequin tends to focus on the outcome of sex (relationships, marriage, the shackles of motherhood), this company focuses more on the... mechanics. Now I'm all in favor of erotica, I think; I'm sure it's possible to write quite well indeed, and while I don't understand it and it tends to leave me cold, if it gets you off, and you enjoy it, then, well, have a party. However, this company is probably not known for doing it well, or even doing it right, as I surmised when I came across this delightful bit of back cover copy, in the milliseconds of reason I had left before its full impact squashed my previously iron fortitude like a grape:
Mahlia is a snow tigress in heat and now that her tiger king has returned to rule the planet Vesperi, she can no longer deny her desperate need to mate.
Hear that? That was my sex drive, packing its bags and leaving. Forever.
My thoughts went something like this:
1) DAMN YOU, FURRIES. DAMN YOU TO HELL.
2) Someone published this. Someone sat behind a desk and pulled from the slush pile the story that would produce such a tagline and after some inspection said "yes, we want to put this in print, this is better than anything else we've received," and, more horrifyingly, "this will sell."
Ladies and gentlemen of the Livejournal universe, I'm done. I've had enough of sitting idly by and watching stuff like this be approved for mass-market distribution at the expense of bolder, braver, more original authors whose only crimes have been insufficient writerly education or experience and a lack of publishing connections. Hear me now as I declare war on the entire publishing industry: I will not rest until I have every last publishing house, no matter how small, no matter how vain, under my brightly colored PVC boot. I will control your agencies, your slush piles, your youthful literary sensations born of nepotism! I will be the sole authority over what foul stuff emanates from your literary bowels! Soon you will ALL be mine! I WILL RULE YOUR PATHETIC WORLD!
That's right, I'm devoting the rest of this week to becoming a publishing supervillainess. If you need me, I'll be out buying my cape.
I arrived at my breaking point today while entering metadata for one of our smaller clients, a romance publisher. While I won't call them by name, I will specify that while Harlequin tends to focus on the outcome of sex (relationships, marriage, the shackles of motherhood), this company focuses more on the... mechanics. Now I'm all in favor of erotica, I think; I'm sure it's possible to write quite well indeed, and while I don't understand it and it tends to leave me cold, if it gets you off, and you enjoy it, then, well, have a party. However, this company is probably not known for doing it well, or even doing it right, as I surmised when I came across this delightful bit of back cover copy, in the milliseconds of reason I had left before its full impact squashed my previously iron fortitude like a grape:
Mahlia is a snow tigress in heat and now that her tiger king has returned to rule the planet Vesperi, she can no longer deny her desperate need to mate.
Hear that? That was my sex drive, packing its bags and leaving. Forever.
My thoughts went something like this:
1) DAMN YOU, FURRIES. DAMN YOU TO HELL.
2) Someone published this. Someone sat behind a desk and pulled from the slush pile the story that would produce such a tagline and after some inspection said "yes, we want to put this in print, this is better than anything else we've received," and, more horrifyingly, "this will sell."
Ladies and gentlemen of the Livejournal universe, I'm done. I've had enough of sitting idly by and watching stuff like this be approved for mass-market distribution at the expense of bolder, braver, more original authors whose only crimes have been insufficient writerly education or experience and a lack of publishing connections. Hear me now as I declare war on the entire publishing industry: I will not rest until I have every last publishing house, no matter how small, no matter how vain, under my brightly colored PVC boot. I will control your agencies, your slush piles, your youthful literary sensations born of nepotism! I will be the sole authority over what foul stuff emanates from your literary bowels! Soon you will ALL be mine! I WILL RULE YOUR PATHETIC WORLD!
That's right, I'm devoting the rest of this week to becoming a publishing supervillainess. If you need me, I'll be out buying my cape.