the very mechanism

If you’re used to doing heavy-duty literary stuff—we’re talkin’ caviar for the general, that doesn’t sell all that well? Being human animals with egos, we find a way to accommodate that fact of our ego, by the following equation: If it sells really well and gets a lot of attention, it must be shit. It’s just generated by the hype machine.
Then of course the ultimate irony is: um, if your own thing gets a lot of attention and sells really well, then the very mechanism you’ve used to shore your...