D.T. Neal's Blog, page 20

My $.02 on $.99

I see a ton of indie writers throwing their books on the midden heap that is Kindle Unlimited under the vainglorious hope that by basically giving a book (or books) away for $.99 that they'll somehow garner an audience.

I've never found that compelling. And, sure, someone could sniff that few people buy my books because they're too pricey.

But let's be honest, here -- nobody's reading those $.99 books, either. And worse, there's a mountain of them, because everybody's throwing their books on that literary landfill and hoping to gull readers into picking up their book and reading it.

How does one stand out in a landfill?

Looking at my books and their Kindle price points, here's how they stack up:

SAAMAANTHAA ($1.99)
THE HAPPENING ($1.99)
NORM ($2.99)
SUCKAGE ($3.99)
CHOSEN ($1.99)
THE CURSED EARTH ($5.99)

RELICT ($1.99)
SUMMERVILLE ($1.99)
THE DAY OF THE NIGHTFISH ($2.99)

THE THING IN YELLOW ($5.99)

And there it is. Are they expensively priced? Nah. They're just not on Kindle Unlimited.

I refuse to undersell myself -- each of those books represents many months of effort on my part (in the case of some of them, longer, if you track the distance from concept to execution).

Anybody thinking that I'm going to just lob them to the landfill for $.99 is dreaming (and/or a prick). People who're drawn to Kindle Unlimited aren't actually looking for quality; they're looking for bargain basement books.

Kindle Unlimited is effectively preying on writers' desperation to get seen, which is why there are so many books in there.

Writers shouldn't sell themselves cheaply. Either readers will pay for the privilege of reading you, or they won't. And, yes, people could make counter-arguments that my complaining about lack of audience could be tied to my refusal to wade into the Kindle Unlimited dump.

However, I don't think so. Once you go rock bottom with your work, it's impossible to climb out of there.

This is the same mindset that's driving the WGA writers striking against the studios -- either you stand up for your work, or you don't. Kindle Unlimited is not writer-friendly; it's writer-abusive. Either you believe in the value of your work, or you don't.

If you enjoy my writing, support my writing, and here's how:

1) Buy my books
2) Read my books
3) Rate and review my books
4) If you like my books, tell others about them

That's how it works. Thanks in advance, but don't go looking for me at the bookdump, because I'll never be there.

Writers Wright

Seeing the WGA writers' strike going on in Hollywood, I am glad they're sticking up for themselves against the studios, even though I fear the AI train is already rolling, and studios will be leaning heavily on AI in the future.

Writers have always been at a disadvantage in Hollywood, owing to the origins of the film industry in silent film -- the others involved with moviemaking had a head start on writers, who didn't become somewhat more important until the talkies.

Jump ahead many decades, and now we're seeing the blistering advent of AI. I fear the future of those kinds of writers will be like a human employee minding a robot factory -- they will likely be there to just make sure the AI doesn't botch the script it conjured up.

Given the ad hoc nature of screenwriting -- in that it's dependent on writers being nimble enough to bob and weave around the demands of the studio, producers, director, etc., the temptation for the studios will be to rely on AI to make those quick updates and revisions to scripts. Plug-and-play.

So, while I definitely support the WGA writers, I fear that this'll be their last strike, win or lose. Given how much AI has commandeered the creative process already (at least in the popular and/or studio imagination), it'll be impossible to imagine another writers' strike in a decade.

I fear that the WGA will be trying to make arrangements for its membership in the here and now, with a grim understanding that in a decade, the demands will be irrelevant in the future, because studios (and AI) will be better able to navigate writing and creation.

Just look how quickly people went from sucking their teeth about AI-generated art to basically shrugging their shoulders. Things are moving very quickly, and AI is not simply going to disappear.

Especially when there are industries that are highly interested in making use of it. The comparison I could make is between a cobbler and a robotic shoe factory -- who wins? The cobbler doesn't stand a chance. There might be some loyal customers, but in volume, the robotic shoe factory wins. It's the John Henry story all over again, just moving into other industries.

AI's not going away. The WGA is trying to right by its writers, and that's laudable, but I fear it's a rearguard move on their part, because the future's going to be with AI, at least on those big-capital enterprises. Writers in that industry will likely become script doctors, while the AI churns out script after script.

Hollywood writers were one of those rare types of writers who could actually make decent money, at least historically, relative to most other types of writers. But the big money involved in moviemaking is precisely what makes the AI incentive all the more central to how the studios roll. The captivity of the studios to Wall Street ensures that the emphasis will be on reliable moneymaking, versus being dependent on something unpredictably human.

And just watch how AI CGI continues to evolve (and improve) -- AI's coming for the actors, next. Maybe some big names will lease out their looks to AI companies to create digital AI proxies of themselves for the screen. Or maybe studios will simply just do it. For them, AI allows for ready ownership of creative assets, so that's a good thing from their POV -- it just hoses the human creators.

We're racing headlong into an AI universe where most of us will simply be irrelevant. Ironically, I saw some articles where they were saying that AI could readily replace CEOs, doing what they do at a fraction of the price. It'll be curious how hard those wealthy CEOs fight their own extinction in the face of the same AI they used to wipe out writers, actors, and artists.

Writers Write

In the face of my objective failure as a writer (I mean, I'm being brutally frank, here), it's mostly confined to my utter failure to find the audience for my work.

Maybe that's on me to have written horror-adjacent thriller-type stories that didn't have an audience, or maybe the thrillers I wrote weren't thrilling enough to captivate thriller readers.

Or the stories I wrote didn't motivate the few people who read them to enthusiastically get behind them and talk about them (I liken it to someone liking a story, without necessary loving it enough to hype it).

It could also be that my dogged indie streak kneecapped me, and that I should've pushed harder into trad back when it might've mattered (choose the time period you wish -- 1990s? 2000s?)

Of course, there's also the reality that plenty of midlist authors are out there twisting in the wind, so even if I'd shrewdly carved a trad path for myself back in the day, I'd be screwed over yet another way.

The point is, I believe in my work, even if nobody else does.

I think it's solid, even as I know probably every writer thinks that, if only to sustain themselves. I've never put out a subpar book, and never will. Should I ever get to that point where I'm writing below my ability or am unable to write well anymore, I'll just stop writing, and put an end to the entire enterprise.

Another possibility is that, as a lifelong misfit, there simply isn't much of an audience for my work, or the few readers out there who might like my work are also the sort who don't praise work they like. They just quietly enjoy it, and that's that. I'm not a norm, never will be. I'm in my own world, literally and figuratively, cursed (or blessed? But, truly, cursed) to always be consigned to the fringes, without possibility of broader acceptance for my work.

I continue to get periodic sales, and those are always nice, wherever they're coming from. Rarer still, I might get someone who reaches out and tells me they enjoyed the book(s). I tend to get decent reviews for my work, so I think that speaks to the work's quality.

However, I fear there's really no audience for my work. I used to chalk it up to the vagaries of the Horror genre -- I know what I write isn't what most Horror boosters pretend to read. Maybe too conceptual? Too cerebral? Too literary? Not sure.

But my SF and Fantasy work isn't getting read, either. My feeling was that those types of genre readers are always looking for stuff to read. Maybe not so much.

And that's the other possibility I've pounded into the ground in a dozen or more blog posts: people have literal tons of choices of both things to read and also other things to do besides reading.

It's not that I'm at odds with writing, the profession I've dedicated myself to for over 30 years. That's part of the curse -- I'll likely write until I die. However, the one true joy of writing beyond the creative act itself is to write something a reader appreciates. When that doesn't happen, when there's just nothing, it's dispiriting. Am I just talking to myself all this time? Is that all it is?

My own kids don't/won't read my books. I think about that sometimes -- like when I'm eventually dead, maybe they'll read my books and learn something about their old man they never knew in life. Or, likelier, they simply won't read my books, and I'll slide into true oblivion.

This isn't self-pitying mewling, here; it's simply the awareness that I have failed in what I set out to do, if part of the goal was to find readers for my work, let alone actual fans of my work.

After over a dozen years and having written 20 books across three genres, I've not found my audience, my readers, or enough fans (there are a couple of you out there, I know, but you are few and far between). What else am I to conclude from that? All I wanted, from childhood onward, was to write things people might enjoy reading, and I fear I failed at that seemingly simple goal.

Writers, Right?

Not to keep pointing this out, but I think all/most writers are feeling it. The glut of books out there is like that massive seaweed blob sliding inexorably toward the Gulf of Mexico -- an overwhelming tide threatening to swamp us all.

More books than readers, or the reality that the number of avid readers are far outnumbered by the mass of book (and entertainment) choices available to them. Net result: sales drop for most.

The willful romanticism of the writing world endures, although it's threadbare these days. For example, people mistake the ongoing popularity of horror movies as indicative of an interest in horror books.

However, the reality is that horror movies/tv shows have a far broader reach than horror novels. And horror movie fans aren't necessarily horror book readers. If anything, they're less likely to be active readers. Watching a horror movie is a very specific thrill ride, and it's an easy one to be a part of. Watching a movie is simply easier than reading a book.

Horror writers are misled by Stephen King's remaining/enduring popularity into thinking there's a strong market for horror for everyone. But there really isn't. It'll always be a niche market. The boosters of horror fiction have a vested interest in pushing/pimping horror books and anointed authors -- in making it seem like everyone can get seen, read, and appreciated, while full knowing that most won't.

However, none of the current crop of horror Flavors of the Month will ever reach Stephen King levels. It'll never happen for them, no matter how well-regarded they supposedly are within the community, or even how pretend-popular or well-regarded they and/or their work is there.

Anyway, the disjunction between movie/television audiences and readers creates a weird dichotomy -- like people see the pop culture attending movie/television stories and think that'll drive book appetites, but I just don't think there's a 1:1 correlation, there.

The deluded and/or idealistic might argue otherwise, but the pop culture profile of even the Flavors of the Month writers remains largely minute, even in the cases of the "success" stories. It's always relative success -- like a writer winning a literary award nobody outside of the community cares about, or getting invited to contribute to an anthology nobody will read.

This might seem very pessimistic or whatever -- as I've said elsewhere, writers will write. The drive to create endures. However, it'll increasingly be writing that doesn't get read. Especially for the majority of us. I've been at it longer than any of the Flavors of the Month writers out there, and have written more books than nearly all of them. I know how one endures as a writer, what it takes to persevere, especially in the absence of audience and support.

Writers are gonna write. That's a fact. And rooted in that writing is a hope for readers. I just don't think there's any industry this side of panning for gold that's more rooted in hopeful speculation than writing and publishing. Everyone's praying (and preying) for that elusive gold, that something of value that comes out of nothing.

The whole panning for gold story from BUSTER SCRUGGS feels to me like the plight of the writer. It's worth watching, if you haven't seen it. And, yes, it could be applied to almost any endeavor, but I see the parallels with the writing and publishing life.

Writing is rooted in a romantic idealism -- the desire to create something that readers will care about. And it just doesn't come true for most of us. Writing (and reading) is work, and people are lazy, and writers are crazy. Therein is the epitaph that frames our benighted lives.

Writer's Rite

I've spent most of my life writing. Having just turned 53, I look back on the time span I've spent writing seriously, and I've been at it since I was 18, so I've been at it for 35 years.

It's obviously a labor of love for me, as I have very little to show for it was a writer, at least professionally. I've produced the works, have done the time, slung out the stories, accumulated the rejections, even DIY'd my way into self-publishing.

But despite my failure to find my audience, I've continued, because I love writing. However, of late, the weight of the world is hanging heavily upon me, and the realization that most of the world doesn't particularly love writing in return.

I fear writing is swiftly being relegated to a curious little thing people do, instead of anything of any sort of cultural relevance. There was a time when novels were a big deal -- even if/when the larger pop culture pretended to care about them, they had to pretend to care about them.

Nowadays, though? Not so much. The digital-driven world is careening forward so rapidly, the accelerative pace of it is leaving writing behind, because writing demands time, patience, and attention (both from writers and readers). Most people don't have enough of any of those things.

Like it kills me when people talk about "slow burns" and "atmospheric" stories as if those were somehow a bad thing. I love me an atmospheric slow burn of a story. The buildup is worth it.

Attention spans have evaporated in the face of the accelerating world, and books (and writers) are the quaint jetsam of the digital age. We're the hallmarks of a quieter, slower, more analog time.

Even e-books (so many people's go-to for reading) STILL require time, attention, and patience to read them. Those rare resources are being readily expended in the hustle-bustle of the digital world.

It's why I see many writers (most of whom could never write a novel, let alone several) trim their sails (heh, and their sales) by writing novellas, or novelettes, or just short stories, or, gods forbid, drabbles and flash fiction. Quick little bursts of writing, because neither they nor the majority of people have the patience for longer works.

What's that say about us as a species? Maybe we'll move back to pictograms and hieroglyphs to communicate in a post-literate world. I just think the meditative act of reading is moving beyond most people's line of sight.

Sorry if this is too much reading, Gentle Reader. But the point I was making is I'm suffering from a crisis in writing -- not in the work itself, which I dutifully do -- but in the sense that writing itself is dying out, or, at best, being exiled into a human curiosity.

Much like the place occupied by poets and poetry -- there was a time when poetry was a huge force in human life. But that time is long past. Yes, there are still poets and poems; it's just that their time has passed. Writers are entering that space, too. Maybe all the fine arts are really in that place as well. I can only imagine what sculptors think (I have huge respect for sculptors, along with all fine artists).

As ever, the work itself is what we do. And we do it because it's what we do. However, the Romantic that I am can't help but mourn the loss of literature from its place of prominence in the culture.

Maybe we're simply moving away from any sort of cultured world, toward a kind of rapid-fire, 24/7 digital barbarism, and that becomes our dystopian landscape. I see that with my Writer's Eye, and it alarms me.

DEVO | What We Do is What We Do

Book'em, Danno

Do you know what the Tragedy of the Commons is? It basically means a situation where individual users with open access to a given resource, unhampered by formal rules, charges, fees, taxes or shared social structures regulating access and use, acting independently according to their own self-interest, and contrary to the common good of all other users, cause depletion of the resource through their uncoordinated action because there are too many users related to the available resources.

Of course, you know I'm going to compare that to writers, readers, and publishing, yes? I believe we're experiencing a Tragedy of the Commons-type scenario in publishing, where the resource being depleted is the time and attention of readers, because of an oversaturated literary marketplace.

There are simply far, far more books than willing readers these days. Here are some tough (and recent) numbers to highlight the plight:

10 Awful Truths About Publishing

There's been an explosion of book publishing while sales have flattened or declined. The average book sells less than 300 copies in its retail lifetime (and less than 1000 copies in its lifetime in all possible formats and markets).

The cold reality is that reading is competing with countless other easier, more available distractions. For the majority of people, if the choice is reading a book or watching a streaming show, what will they do?

That's what creates the problem -- even a hypothetical avid reader (let's say they read a book a week) can only read 52 books a year. How many people honestly read 52 books a year? The median American reader (Pew Research found) reads around 4 books a year (versus the 12 to 15 books a year average, which is likely skewed because of the fraction of heavy readers).

So, Reader X (the median) readers four books a year, and has millions of books to choose from each year. See the problem?

Meanwhile, books are piling up. What's that number I quoted before? Only 35% of trad books turn a profit? And probably less than 10% of indie/self-published books do that.

That's part of this Tragedy of the Commons -- the market's absolutely flooded with books that almost nobody's reading or wanting to read.

What that means is that most aren't going to make it, even as they scramble to release book after book for fewer and smaller returns (if any). It's simply not sustainable, at least as any sort of business. As a hobby, sure. But not as a business.

And that's the problem -- trad's being choked out by the flood of indie dead letter books, and readers are being burned out by an overabundance of a product they barely want (and have plentiful other options to entertain themselves), while writers continue to flood the already-crowded marketplace with still-more books.

Everyone hopes they've written some lightning in a bottle book, but all I see is a field piled high with empty bottles, and nothing but clouds in the sky, without a trace of lightning.

Raiders of the Lost ARC

Apparently there was some back-and-forthing on the Twit about reviewers not following through on ARCs (Advance Review Copies).

I'm not going to get mired in that discourse, except to say that if reviewers request ARCs and fail to deliver reviews ahead of a book's launching, they're screwing over the writers and publishers with their bad faith.

Simply put: don't make a request for an ARC if you are unable or unwilling to do the reviews for the book(s) in question.

It's a shit thing to do, because the only value of an ARC is for marketing and promotional purposes -- that's the express purpose of an ARC.

If a reviewer requests an ARC and fails to review it, they're getting a book to read for free -- and the price they ought to pay is with a timely review.

When they fail to do this, said reviewer reveals themself to be (at best) an amateur, a hobbyist, perhaps a charlatan, or, worse, an active con artist or huckster.

All too often indie reviewers whine and complain about all the piles of books in their TBR piles -- which is like a coal miner complaining about going underground, or a writer complaining about having to use words: it goes with the territory. Reviewers are supposed to review.

The reviewers who are making those complaints are not professionals, full stop. They want to be seen as reviewers, but don't want to be stuck doing the work reviewers have to do. They want to eat their cake and have it, too.

Simple solutions to the ARC problem, "reviewers": 1) don't request ARCs if you aren't willing and able to follow through on that request and deliver a timely review; 2) don't put your name out there as a reviewer if you don't like reviewing books, or find yourself unable to do so. That would be like a baker who doesn't bake anything.

I think what we have are a lot of hobbyists/enthusiasts out there who love getting free books, and chafe at any sense of obligation that comes with getting those free books, and use their social media platform to slag writers and/or publishers who try to hold them to their obligations. But an ARC isn't just a book; it's specifically intended to assist with marketing.

Publishers should take note of which reviewers burn them regarding ARCs and simply refuse requests for ARCs from the ones who are problems in terms of follow-through.

That'll save publishers headaches (and, let's be clear, in the case of print ARCs, there's an actual cost there that impacts the publisher). There'll be some social media whining about it, but the fact remains: the "reviewers" are the ones who failed the writers and the publishers, not the other way around. These charlatans are bad faith actors.

Reviewers: if you want to be taken seriously as reviewers, follow through on each and every ARC request you make. That'll help you build your professional reputation as a reliable reviewer.

NOTE: I'm not talking about unsolicited review copies; I'm only talking about ones where a reviewer reaches out and requests an ARC.

This may trigger some of you reading this, but a reviewer who fails on following through on an ARC request (or on multiple requests) should expect nothing else in the future. Maybe take that time to work through your ARC backlog, you slovenly shits.

And if you can't handle the above, you're absolutely part of the problem with the indie publishing world.

Editorializing

Don't mind me -- I'm going to do a little editorial about editors. Editors are to publishing what, say, lighting engineers are to moviemaking or what bass players are to music. They are essential to the process, but there's zero appreciation for what they do,

That's because if an editor does their job well, it's invisible. Bad (or nonexistent) editing stands out. But good (or even great) editing? Nah. Invisible.

I've worked professionally as an editor since, hell, 1992 -- and I've often quipped that there are two types of editors: those who edit with pens, and those who edit with martini glasses.

The latter are the show pony editors -- the ones who circulate at parties and show up on the mastheads of publications, and gladhand people, ostensibly for their amazing editorial judgment. I imagine there are still some of those left at, say, The New Yorker or The Paris Review. Maybe Esquire or The Atlantic. Otherwise, not so much.

The rest of us are workhorse editors -- the ones who actually dive into copy and clean it the hell us. You'd be amazed how much cleaning up copy requires for it to be readable.

What's interesting is that I've also worked as an indie editor -- I do editing for Nosetouch Press -- and I'm going to flat-out say that indie editing (if/when it even occurs) is thoroughly unappreciated.

The writers drawn to indie aren't used to having their copy edited. Judging from most of the indie works I see trudging amid the sludge, I think editing is at best a remote consideration for the majority of them. Maybe somebody'll do some cursory proofreading, possibly they'll run a spellcheck, and TA-DA! Edited.

When you actually do developmental editing -- which is to say, editorial work that moves beyond mere grammar and structure to the heart of the story, indie writers squirm. They don't like it. How dare this nobody indie editor touch their perfect prose?

Newsflash: Everything written can benefit from editing. It's just the nature of the process. A back read is essential, and sometimes it can help just to have another set of eyes on the pages. But man, is it ever resented.

Editing sucks as a profession. I'm sure the sad souls doing trad editing are hating life. But I have to say that the only way to make it worse is for it to be indie editing.

But if anything would benefit from copious editing, it's indie writing. The problem is that there are clown cars packed with clowns masquerading as indie editors -- I mean, just like anybody with a pile of junk writing can call themselves a writer, so can anybody attach "editor" to their name. It's a real problem with indie publishing, for sure.

Good editors are unicorns; good indie editors, rarer still. Indie writers should be grateful if any indie editor actually takes the time and energy to try to make their work sharper, crisper, clearer, cleaner. And, like so much with indie, it's being done without pay.

If an indie editor isn't actually editing your work or asking you questions about the work, don't consider it a kindness or a reflection of your writing genius; consider it neglect.

A Great First Step

You may or may not have seen this story about Ireland giving a no-strings-attached stipend to artists as part of a pilot program for the next three years.

I have to hand it to the Irish for being nicely forward-thinking on this, even as it pains me that something like this'll be unlikely to ever appear in the States, because of the fascist a-holery of the Banana Republicans (and, honestly, the neocapitalist dipshittery of the mainstream Dumbocrats).

But the idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) is something that should be in play throughout the First World, to be honest.

I think it's cool that the Irish are using it with artists, to see what they might do with some patronage and support.

This is the thing people who aren't creative don't understand: when you're a creative, you create whether or not you get money from it. The drive is simply there. And those lucky sods in Ireland who're artists can then create without worrying how they'll make ends meet.

Jettison the romantic notion of "the starving artist" as anything worthwhile, because it's not. A creative person may be forced to turn their creativity toward daily living expense, but suffering is an sucky form of inspiration -- what kind of painter can you be if you can't afford brushes, paints, or even a canvas?

A society willing to support its artists? Well, that says something about that society. In the States? Hell, we can't even get sensible gun control legislation after endless cycles of mass shootings -- especially school shootings. If we can't/won't do that, how on earth could we expect anyone to offer a UBI to artists (I'm including writers, of course -- any creatives, for that matter).

Just saying. I look forward to seeing how Ireland's experiment progresses, and I salute them for trying it, hope other civilized nations do it, too.

Oh, and in case any right-wingding is trolling my blog and grumbling about "free stuff" or whatever -- just know that you creeps love subsidies, so long as they apply only to you (see farm subsidies for one glaring example among many), but also note how red states receive far more money & services than they ever pay out, compared with blue states, who pay out more and get less -- so, what I'm telling you is to SUCK IT, you hypocrites -- it's time for a UBI in the States, and kudos to Ireland for blazing that particular trail.

Let's see actually taxing the rich (and super-rich) what they should be, and have that money fund a UBI. Hell, put a Tobin Tax on speculative investing and they could probably fund it in a fortnight.

So sorry-not sorry if this is too political for you, Gentle Reader. I'm just not a fan of gorging Fat Cats deciding how the rest of us are supposed to be content with crumbs.

Fiction Friction

I'll probably be pilloried for this, but I don't care. Gotta vent, and it's my blog, so deal with it. Okay, so when the first one happened, I rolled my eyes...

Exhibit A (for Ashtabula)

White woman self-publishes a book, nobody turns up for her launch/signing/whatever, and then she complains on Twitter, and (somehow) garners a pile of sympathy/support from a host of celebrities, and than KABOOM! Now she's packing them in.

And more recently, we have a NYT-bestselling white woman author with nearly 17K followers on the Twit doing the same thing, which is parading her disappointment on social media (some mention about crying all the way home):

Exhibit B

And, KABOOM! Outpouring of social media celebrity support, news stories, etc., etc. Is this how it's going to go?

I mean, nobody showing up at book signings is somehow newsworthy? How is that even news???

Or is it only significant if/when white women are saddened by an otherwise painfully routine occurrence?

Kind of like how when serial killers are hunting people, if/when white women are the targets, it's national news -- but if other groups are the targets, meh. Not nearly as much coverage. Studies have been done on it:

Exhibit C

Can you for one minute imagine a white man whining on social media about nobody turning up at one of his events? Or a black man? Or a black woman? An Asian woman or man? Latinas or Latinos? Nah. They'd be run out of a town on a virtual rail (if the white man) and otherwise ignored (if nonwhite).

If anything, in the case of the white man, people would be like "Ha! Serves you right, Dude!"

In addition to that umbrage-inducing reaction this provokes in me, there's also the objective reality of how many of these "white woman writer cries on social media and the world swoops to the rescue" stories are we going to see in the future?

One was bad, two is worse, but I'm already imagining others in the pity-milking posse sharpening their knives for the next travesty of a writer (and, of course, a white woman writer, most importantly) crying about the lack of support.

Newsflash: writers everywhere are in a real jam -- trad and indie -- and it's ludicrous to me that these two instances get national coverage (and international, for fuck's sake). For as much as people love to invoke implicit bias as a weapon, there's a very clear case of implicit bias in operation here.

The moral of these news stories: it pays for white women to publicly cry on social media, at least when they're writers. The mainstream (and mainstream media, especially) hates to see white women writers disappointed, clearly.

I'm morbidly bemused to watch how evergreen this trend (?) ends up being. Like, will the third disappointed white woman writer get as much coverage and support as these first two? The fourth? Fifth? Sixth? How far does it go? When does it end?

EVERY writer is getting pounded by the market these days. Most of us are just not newsworthy, it would appear.

All I know is I'd love to see the dollar value assigned to the amount of free publicity the crying white woman writer earns in those sorts of posts. I hope somebody quantifies it, because it would be instructive. And then compare and contrast with other groups in similar situations, see how that shakes out for them.

That's somebody's doctoral thesis right there. You're welcome.

Postscript (4/8): As if to make my point for me:

Are We Implicitly Biased Against Men and Toward Women?