Okay, I'd originally intended to do something clever in this space like try on the Don Imus Whack-A-Newbie Fishing Lure Set and see what I could catch. Happily, however, something else has reared its head. Over in the Science Fiction Writer's Association, the SFWA, their current veep Howard V. Hendrix
was quoted at length on the current situation regarding what he refers to as "webscabs." In case you don't know what that term means, it means you and me.
Period. We are webscabs, bottom-feeders in the literary world... indeed, though it might surprise you to know this, we are the enemy. Why? Simple. Just like that high-school whore that every guy wanted to date at least once and every girl was on some level fascinated by, we give it away for free. And here I was thinking I'd been a nice guy all these years. The nerve I have! The cheek! To undercut my fellow writers in such a dastardly--
Wait. What?
I'm the bad guy because I give it away for free? Last time I checked, Nightfall had been rejected by about a baker's dozen worth of publishing houses and about half that many agents (
barring the Donkey Ass imbroglio) so it makes me the bad guy when I decide "You know, I think it's a pretty neat story so what the hell, I'll throw chunks of it against the electronic wall and see which parts my e-readers see think stick," are you serious?
I could perhaps understand this attitude a little better if we all got into this racket because we wanted a license to mint money at will. You know, you're busting your tail to get something rounded into publishable shape and along comes some clipboard-carrying substitute scrub who uses five minutes with Microsoft Front Page to toss his poorly-worded 450,000 screed about space rats and their war against the interstellar kitty oppressors and thereby monopolizes the audience you were trying so desperately to reach. In a situation like that, you'd be right to be torqued. There are a few things wrong with this model that needed to be pointed, however:
1) By and large, we didn't get into this for the money. I drive a bus for my day job, and I can tell you right up-front that I didn't start that career out of any particular desire to help people get around in their day-to-day lives. I do it for the money and the benefits, period. You tell me that for the rest of my life I can drive a bus every day and not get any money for it, and I'll be out of there so fast, you'll think you just saw a male version of Witch Hazel from the Looney Tunes take flight. Conversely, I've been writing novels for seventeen years and the total amount of money I've made from this would fit comfortably in a coin purse. There is a good possibility that I will never get ay scratch from this thing I do, and I accepted that chance a long time ago. Period. Okay, once you've got your first contract you start thinking a little more along mercenary lines and sure, I get that you have to sometimes change your approach in order to get into print... but these were not Day One considerations. We got into this vicious cycle because we love it, plain and simple.
2) I want people to read what I've written. If I didn't, every time I got done with something I would seal it up in an envelope and stick it in the Trunk Of Doom that every writer has and go on with the body count. I don't do that, though. I get feedback, I take suggestions and criticisms, I polish, shape, edit and do my best to get it into some kind of game shape before sending it out to be slaughtered by the publishing wolves. I do this over and over again and sometimes, I tell the industry to fellate themselves and throw it up on my own piece of Net Hell and smile smugly as I say, "Domino, motherfucker. Domino." It's free, it's mine and if I want to make origami hats out of the pages, I'll do that. I suppose if I was truly warped I could even say that in a way it's the publishing industry's fault because if they would take this crap off my hands, I wouldn't have to inflict it on the public without compensation, which is woefully psychotic but as good a segue as we'll get for...
3) Most of this stuff sucks. There, I said it. There's a very good reason why that not-so-hypothetical half-million word polemic about the Star Ra'ats (apologies to Andre Norton for that handle; her stuff was good, so no disrespect intended) ended up being parked on one of the moldy old Tripod servers for the last five years without any page views. Although the industry does sometimes screw the pooch and send out something truly God-awful, for the most part the people they are binding and stocking on the bookshelves are at least competent. Not so on the Internet. Go scare up some “writer blogs” on the service of your choice and I guarantee you that within a dozen or so viewings you’ll throw your arms around your local Barnes & Nobles owner and weep for joy.
It should be hastily pointed out, in the spirit of fair play, that I’m not immune from this; although The Phoenix Initiative moves at a fast pace and garnered a lot of positive ink, Nightfall is not a publishable quality novel. I’m not telling any tales out of church by saying this. If I asked you to shell out eight bucks for this in your local store, you’d feel like I just mugged you. That’s why I’m doing it for free. Let’s face facts; if you took away free iPod offers, porn and bad poetry, you probably wouldn’t have enough Internet left to fill up that coin purse I referred to earlier. Ha-ha! Just kidding. Mostly. Basically, thinking that these self-described “unsung geniuses” are in any way right now a real threat to the status quo is about as disingenuous as it gets. The iPod, DVR and streaming Internet broadcasts is much more of a threat to the publishing industry than I am or ever could be.
In closing, though, I do have to point out one thing that Dr. Hendrix did us a favor on, even if it was unknowingly. He said that there is a "downward spiral that is converting the noble calling of Writer into the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch.” Amid the outrage that spawned in the wake of that comment, a real nugget of wisdom reared its head: if you want things to change, get involved and throw these moldy old fossils out. They look at people like you and me as the enemy. We’re not. We’re the next generation, the soiled, sulky kids being forced to sit at the children’s table because we’re perceived as low-class, vulgar interlopers who are going to drag everything down into the primordial ooze they worked so hard to rescue the world for.
Ladies and gentlemen, man your catapults. I say it’s time to fling some mud in the name of progress.