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Political Correctness, Bigotry, and Hypocrisy In Current SciFi/Fantasy Circles
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My response to all this as an artist is:Reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world. - Terence McKenna
This was my birthday poem for Igor, who was the PR genius who launched the graphic novel as a new form and played an integral role in the development of audience for such authors as Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore. Igor is also one of the co-founders of Comic Con and a great, naked poet. And a Chameleon author.
We are the New People - for Igor Goldkind.
We are the new people
The broken people
Our souls scattered
through the streets
of shattered dreams
We are the new people
The wounded people
Our hearts broken
into thousands of shards
like so much hard red meat
We are the new people
The crippled people
Our bodies lurching
forward like shambling Golems
in the full moon night
We are the new people
The unwanted people
Our faces pressed
against the window
wishing to be asked inside
We are the new people
Our blood is strong
Our spirit unbroken
We smile, crooked and sideways
to see
All the stupidity
cupidity
mendacity
duplicity
Which cannot hold back
the guilty, grieving
twisted, yet unbowed and
brokenhearted seers
among us.
Alicja wrote: Then what's the difference if he is an intergalactic Navajo or intergalactic Caucasian? Why is white the default? I'd object somewhat to the premise that "white is the default." Sometimes you get detailed physical descriptions of characters, more often you don't. When you do get it, rarely is it germaine to their develpoment as characters.
And if it isn't germaine to them as characters, what difference does it make what color they are?
Becky wrote: I have yet to see anyone in this thread asking for books which have characters so specific that it mimics their lives and situations. People are saying that they want diversity in books - something that more closely resembles the diversity of the people who read them. These statements are somewhat contradictory.
Whew - sorry guys, this thing filled up and I saw nothing ... pardon me for being a poor Goodreads user.Re: Aaron's comment about "I'm going to need in way more detailed statistics then such broad and sweeping ones. The majority of people I know who read books read John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Stephen King and other people whos books you can find piled to the skies in used book stores"
There are plenty of detailed stats, but they are of little value as far as planning or placing new work in the market. These are exclusively oriented toward heavy book buyers/readers and the market has trained them to do exactly what you say. For example, one of the reasons thriller covers are so similar is that thriller readers are among the least-adventurous. They not only do not like non-thriller books, they tend to strongly favor specific favorite authors and don't like to read outside of those authors. Many readers are "trained" and respond to cues in terms of covers, pull quotes, etc. However the truth is that the top reasons readers buy and read books are 1) recommendations from friends; and 2) excerpts or samples of the work. If somebody won't listen to a friend, or won't take the time to even look at an excerpt, it's done. Among "friends" would also be teachers, bookstore clerks, much-followed commenters (i.e. bloggers). Heavy readers and light readers have much different buying/reading patterns.
Nora Roberts/JD Robb is a little different, possibly. In and of herself, she's practically a one-person library and her books are quite varied - her JD Robb books aren't sophisticated sci fi that would please diehard in-genre sci fi readers, but they are sci fi and she's been reaching more of a general audience with them for years. These are big numbers in all these authors; Stephen King is also a "one man brand." However, most King readers will also look at other similar works and there is a young gentleman who has a career despite the fact he chose not to use his father's name. He does not have the career his father has had to date, however. Everybody who reads books "just like these" is part of an ever-devolving niche audience.
As to self-publishing, Amazon's algorithms are based on exactly what you describe. So any self-publishing success (and 100% to date, even those arising outside the Amazon system) are coming out of an established, niche interest group or audience. This audience will age, it will change, it will devolve, resulting in ever-shrinking sales numbers. Today's "bestsellers" with a few exceptions are extremely short-lived. They may do similar numbers to those of a decade to two decades ago, but they do not "live." Most of the books discussed are not going to be much-read 5 to 10 years from now and in that group, I would include, I'm sorry to say, Hunger Games. There will be something new serving its need among the audience of its age group (12-25, female, primarily) at that time.
The reason there are all these "diversity" concerns is that authorship is primarily a volunteer effort. A lot of people with something of worth to say simply cannot afford to "write for free" for years in the hope of maybe, someday, being paid. In addition, there's no discounting the purchase concerns I mentioned - first that all book acquisitions are made based on what has sold in the past, at-best, and second, the acquisition of product is ceded to non-employees for the most part (literary agents) who themselves, select work for mysterious reasons, in many cases - sometimes not so mysterious, such as Manhattan gossip and innuendo. This is about as far from looking at what readers want (as opposed to "they always do this"). The wrong questions are being asked of the market, in the wrong manner.
Self-publishing has NOT solved this concern. As I said, there's no such self-publishing success that wasn't already written to the taste of an established, niche group or audience - usually by someone who was a member of that group or audience. In other words, "preaching to the choir," in common language.
Many of those who make authorship a profession and manage to make a go of it have skills and interests that are not in accordance with writing something truly good that will last. They may have plenty of skills and may well be able to write readable books, but they're not J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, or Margaret Mitchell (who wrote one book). They're not Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. The skills required to "make it" in legacy publishing are in particular, not those which are in accordance with those that make truly great books. These days, apropos of what has been discussed here (and in-genre adult SF/F isn't supporting anybody outside of Lois Bujold, Larry Correia, John Ringo and a very few others) it's skill in meeting the tastes of the small, vocal group that believes these controversies to be connected to "audience" or reader tastes. May's article is correct where he points out various specific language issues in "classic" works (by volunteer authors, for the most part) and the newer authors - also volunteers, pretty much, but a different set and sort with different motives and interests.
Becky wrote: I have yet to see anyone in this thread asking for books which have characters so specific that it mimics their lives and situations. People are saying that they want diversity in books - something that more closely resembles the diversity of the people who read them. These statements are somewhat contradictory."
Only if you choose interpret it that way. Wanting more diversity is not the same as laying out demand terms for what shape that takes. The call for diversity is saying that 'different' is OK, wanted, and necessary.
Wow I really like everything about your last post. Thinking about the one man brands being the ones that allow diversity and with Japan on my mind from the last comment. I was reminded of a few things Japan does that I haven't seen state side. Visual Novels...even in Japan these still have a stigma since they were pretty much porn games for a long time, but more and more that are more regular books have been coming out and as a medium especially in an Ipad/smart phone age I'm really sad it hasn't been explored more. I really wish that Steven King or one of the other one man brands would use their weight to make one I think it could do extremely well and it would probably get all sorts of "revolutionary", "never seen before" remarks.
For those unaware it's basically a choose your own adventure book(not a point and click adventure game like the ones sierra and lucas arts used to make) but way longer since it's on a computer, so it has visuals and a soundtrack which changes based off where you are in the text. Seriously if you have some cash Stein's;Gate did get an english translation (sci-fi/time-travel). It's also long 50ish hours I think.
A few other things like PNR targeted towards teenaged boys is a successful thing over there.
Amy wrote: ""It's like if you went to the department store and your choices were knee-length skirts, ankle-length pants, 2 types of jeans and short-sleeved button down blouses, and "day dresses" and "evening dresses" in 5 or 6 different colors and styles. That was what the department store was like in the 50s, by the way. So maybe it might make some sense to say legacy publishing approaches its business as retail clothing and fashion designers did in the 1950s?
..."
Who needs that much choice.The joy of being male is when it's a funeral I wear a black tie with the suit, when it's a wedding, I wear the other tie.
You're speaking to a minority and you're not using their language :-)
And to date, readers are being driven like cattle, apropos of the quote I put. They are being sold product manufactured by people who, with very limited exceptions, hold them in nothing but contempt. As to authors often mentioned in connection with sci-fi history and famous books, Heinlein was a former naval officer and engineer of some type (not sure what). Ursula Le Guin is a bilingual, highly honored scholar, daughter of two scholars and academics. Isaac Asimov was a Russian immigrant and biochemistry professor and workaholic. Of these three, Ursula is the intellectual "insider," and of these three, she is the only one to achieve any recognition, though less than she deserves, from "the academy."
To quote Asimov's bio (and he really was a marvelous, humane author) - "Isaac Asimov was fond of learning at a young age, having taught himself to read by the age of 5; he learned Yiddish soon after, and graduated from high school at 15 to enter Columbia University."
My paternal grandmother came to the US five years prior to Asimov, from a very similar background, except I believe she already knew Yiddish. She entered Columbia University at age 13, simultaneously teaching herself English, and graduated with a degree in Pharmacy at age 15. I had always thought she was the first female licensed pharmacist in NYC (Hells Kitchen) but that is not true. She was the first in California, after she moved here as a young mother with her twins and husband.
Oh the stories she may have told, and did tell - to her family. Oh the wisdom she imparted. My maternal great-grandmother wrote stories each month for the Saturday Evening Post, under a man's name which we shall never know, and believe me, I've tried. She died a year before I was born.
I have had people tell me to my face that my mother cannot possibly have designed Mr. Magoo because they are animation experts and I do not know what I have in my own house, which would be some of her original drawings and work.
Whether conscious (and in many cases it is) or unconscious, the product put out by legacy publishers, and by association at present, brought forth to "success" through the self-publishing system, is designed to reinforce cultural norms. It may in limited cases question, but never too much, and never outside "the expected."
I seldom say anything "by accident." Igor's quote from Terence McKenna struck me because he referenced ""... consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world ..."
I do cross-border business development work. I have worked in dozens of different business sectors over the past 3 years; prior to that, I was an executive in major non-profit housing and economic development work. I moved into the for-profit sector because there is truly no point in "charitable work" any longer. People need jobs, money and access to education. No nonprofit can effectively address the change that needs to occur.
That said, in every sector I am familiar with, which includes green energy, construction, manufacturing of a variety of products, food, and health care, people are seeking new answers, new ways of doing things, and above all, are hungry. They are hungry for real things. Real food, real health, real quality of life. Every sector, every thing -- is changing.
Except publishing and books. We are even told "no one reads any longer." Yet I go and talk to people and all say "If I found a great book, I would read it." When Igor forces people to listen to his poems, no matter the venue and no matter how reluctant, they are spellbound. They are thrilled, excited, and they feel alive. His poems are simple and accessible, but they are also real poems and not devoid of intellectual content.
We have publishers who refer to authors as "the competition." We have others who believe they compete with online games, the vast array of visual media, and other "forms of entertainment." Product is being made and sold by people who likely don't read much and who very much dislike their assumptions challenged.
The truth is, books are the only means yet that humans have devised to communicate complex emotions or concepts that incorporate all of our senses and our imaginations, across vast stretches of time and space. Not simple. Complex. Encompassing. Rare. Yes, other media does communicate more simple or of the moment ideas and emotions. People also, as Toni Morrison wrote, "Write in order to know" what they think. The act of writing is integral to thinking. It's not an afterthought, it IS the thought.
So, when I hear people speaking about diversity, I understand quite well what it is they mean. They would like their thoughts to be communicated. They would like to read something that is not in accordance with McKenna's quote. But the thing is - this is true of everyone. It's not just true of someone who believes themselves to be part of an historically oppressed group.
They want real books written by writers who are interested in communicating with THEM. And at its best, this type of book will work for many, many people - across time, across continents, across generations, in any language. That is true. That is Huckleberry Finn. That is Lord of the Rings. That is War & Peace. That is Jane Eyre.
Not 50 Shades of Grey.
Amy wrote: "You'd probably like Igor's work. He's the Naked Poet and I'm the Janis Joplin of publishing. http://igorgoldkind.com/tag/igor-gold......"
Listened to him and struggled to hear him, the speakers on this machine aren't good.
But I rarely read poetry.
I googled Janis Joplin, I'd heard of her but remember she was dead before I took a lot of notice of American music, but I'm left wondering whether you mean you'll last for a couple of years before the drink and drugs kill you?
Aaron wrote: "Wow I really like everything about your last post. Thinking about the one man brands being the ones that allow diversity and with Japan on my mind from the last comment. I was reminded of a few..."
Aaron, please think about keeping track of Chameleon. While the basis of the finances are built upon "normal performing" books, enabling authors to actually earn a living, have health and retirement benefits, we are looking at investing R & D dollars in new projects, and that is a primary interest of Igor Goldkind - not just for his own work (IS SHE AVAILABLE? is his poetry/art/music book that is in development right now). CTO Chris is the lead engineer of the Kindle interface. All these ideas and experiences you have would be very well-received by them and their friends.
Jim wrote: "Amy wrote: "You'd probably like Igor's work. He's the Naked Poet and I'm the Janis Joplin of publishing. http://igorgoldkind.com/tag/igor-gold......"
Listened to him and struggled to hear him, th..."
I'll let Igor know about his sound quality issues. The one poem he reads that gets everybody is "The Darkness."
He's the one who came up with Janis Joplin - I totally don't buy that. I mean, she was a great singer and all. But no - I don't plan to die any time soon. I am in fact a ridiculous health maniac, and have been dairy-free 6 years, gluten and additive-free over 1 year and am like a daily workout person. I never bought the whole "tortured artist" have to do drugs, drink like a maniac thing. I think that's probably just another way to get troublesome folk out of the way, society-wise.
Regarding fantasy - and I am a sci-fi writer in the past, for the most part - here's something else we are doing, and no, Chameleon is NOT self-publishing, it will be a significant independent publisher (think SourceBooks).https://www.facebook.com/likefirenovel
I was very influenced by illustrated books while growing up. I loved Kidnapped and Treasure Island, with the great illustrations by NC Wyeth. I also read and re-read classic illustrated editions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights with woodcuts made by Fritz Eichenberg.
So while at the Writers of the Future anniversary week earlier this year, I paid close attention to the illustrators. The talent level is through the roof - they are all unbelievable. I asked Kirbi Fagan if she'd be willing to collaborate in producing something similar to these classic books, as I could see she loved these great illustrators like NC Wyeth but had a modern sensibility. She's blowing it out of the water.
>>Who needs that much choice.The joy of being male is when it's a funeral I wear a black tie with the suit, when it's a wedding, I wear the other tie.You're speaking to a minority and you're not using their language :-) >>
I didn't say it, but earlier in the conversation, I had a mental picture of the scene in the Temple Grandin movie where she's in her college cafeteria announcing, "I only eat jello and yogurt. I only eat jello and yogurt." I think she might eat a couple different things now; hard to say.
And by the way, think about how messed up our world is that she's known for being "the high-functioning autistic person" rather than being the designer of, I think, 2/3 of the humane slaughter facilities in North America - like, she's kept people ALIVE by keeping all kinds of pathogens out of our beef. I just finished some consulting work for a small free-range beef operation in Canada. Even Cargill relies upon and respects Temple Grandin.
The diversity "issue" has to do with locked doors and glass ceilings of the large book publishing corporations. When I began writing sf, women were not welcome in what was considered a male market. Further, for a long time, only women who wrote in the style of men were welcome--that is, stories by women about women characters who were single professionals uninterested in romance or children. For most of my life, that was not the way most American women lived. These were great stories to read and showed women did have choices, but why couldn't a woman character be like my sister-in-law, a scientist leading the work of the lab (though her male boss took all the credit) with a baby at home whose baby-sitter had a time limit and yes, a husband in the picture too.The romance novel world was worse. You were supposed to write in this very strict formula and use baby words.
So I set up a website, a long time ago to sell my books. Nothing was selling, but a friend in the computer industry told me about a new venture Peanut Press. I wrote to Peanut Press and they took my books. For many years there was incredible resistance to e-books. The scorn was immense. This scorn went on and on and on, until it stopped when vast amounts of e-books started to sell and pretty much saved the publishing industry as brick and morter stores closed down. Miami, basically a city 70 miles long, has only three major bookstores, all of the Barnes & Noble.
Publishers seemed to then go through this phase of only publishing books by people already famous. This phase might be over, I hope so. Now when I look for marketing help, suddenly there is real help. There are lots of reviewers who will review e-books and readers are happy with ebooks for all the reasons we who started decades ago said they were good.
Now I am trying again to sell my books and am launching a new one, a fantasy book, the first in a series. Years ago I redid my publishing site. I publish my dad's book, a famous book on the theater. I publish my father's-in-law book. It's in Spanish. He was a leader in the coop movement and wrote Venezulia's coop laws. His novel is a coop utopia thriller, or so I'm told. I don't know Spanish. And I've got a book on literary and drama theory, highly recommended by Ben Bova. These are superior books, but two of the three of them crash against closed doors and glass ceilings because my father-in-law and I are not white males like my dad was.
I hope that the new publishing venture discussed here goes well. I spent a year trying to find an agent for my new book. I spent a year trying to find a publisher for my drama theory book and met with "good book but we aren't going to publish it because marketing says no." I'm an impatient sort and waiting for a year for an acceptance of good books is really difficult. Closed doors and glass ceilings suck.
Cynthia, all my love and respect and hope and wishes to you. You are in accordance with a Chameleon author. You are one of us.
Amy wrote: "I didn't say it, but earlier in the conversation, I had a mental picture of the scene in the Temple Grandin movie where she's in her college cafeteria announcing, "I only eat jello and yogurt. I only eat jello and yogurt." I think she might eat a couple different things now; hard to say. ..."I've never seen the film, but I've seen her animal handling principles put into practice and she does seem to talk sense. I didn't know she was autistic, indeed I was only vaguely aware she was female, because that wasn't what I was interested in, what mattered was that the ideas worked and when I built my handling facilities, I used them.
The real advantage of being male when it comes to clothes is that you don't have to waste money on them. :-) I can turn up at all sorts of occasions wearing the same suit and save my money for spending on important things.
Oh and I did like the phrase "the last bastion of indentured servitude in the West: book publishing"I think it catches the feel nicely.
A friend of mine who has been a professional novelist for a lot of years (His earnings support the family, he pays tax on them)
He just remembers the old way of doing things in that he knew writers whose sole contact with the publishing trade was twice a year they'd be given lunch by their agent. At the lunch the agent would get the next manuscript and the agent would check to make sure that the half-yearly royalty cheque had been paid into their account.
That was it, they did no sales, no marketing, they'd have the occasional discussion, by letter, with an editor, and might see the front cover before it was printed, they just wrote and got the money, and these writers had a similar standard of living to a teacher from their earnings.
I think if Temple saw you said this, Jim, she would be very glad: "I didn't know she was autistic, indeed I was only vaguely aware she was female, because that wasn't what I was interested in, what mattered was that the ideas worked and when I built my handling facilities, I used them." That would give her concrete information that her work has accomplished its task.Re: the old-style work with writers/agents - I guess the "agent" aspect has also changed. Writers cannot trust their agents these days. This has been true a long while but I sense many are just now waking up to this uncomfortable situation. The agent's interest is his or her own bank account. When making deals, they will often shortchange the interest of one client in favor of a bigger deal for another. This is why a growing number of writers are using IP attorneys and paying them to review contracts, and foregoing the traditional author-agent relationship.
The other big difference in your friend's experience is those writers were writing two books a year, that was their primary activity, and it was ongoing work.
That alone would contribute not just to the writer having a standard of living similar to a teacher, it would also contribute to better work, because it's regular work. Two books a year for 10 years is 20 books.
People on this site alone actually judge that someone like me "can't write" because I've only published 3 novels. They'll see that only 1 is with a "big publisher." They have no context to know I've "fixed" half a dozen more books for writers who turned in work with big problems, or incomplete. They don't know that "I teach their children," having filled up texts for all grade levels in 18 states as a house writer for McGraw-Hill. I mean fiction and poetry written "in the style of ..." famous writers - with characters that are diverse based on their lesson plans. My best work under my own name is in college literature and bioethics texts.
But I'm not writing about biotech any more. I'm writing about space, time and immortality.
I'm trying to say I've gotten a couple of pretty much worthless beta reads (and two dozen awesome ones) because the volunteers approached the task like I was slush and looked for nitpicks - like informing me that the use of past tense verbs was "passive voice." Tell that to a competent college English teacher who's written grammar sections of texts for the top educational publishers.I'm really not sure what this culture is, but I joined the Independent Book Publishers Association and received their publication this week - it was almost 100% devoted to self-publishing. Alan Rodgers (my partner of 10 years, who died in March after a long illness) would have said it was the blind leading the blind. I think that people knowing that there are things they do need to learn is probably key. A lot of people seem to be unaware that there are things they do not know, and seem to be reinventing the wheel over and over.
I haven't really applied much analysis to this, but I "see" it. As to legacy publishing - yes, I have.
Amy wrote: "People on this site alone actually judge that someone like me "can't write" because I've only published 3 novels. They'll see that only 1 is with a "big publisher." They have no context to know I've "fixed" half a dozen more books for writers who turned in work with big problems, or incomplete. They don't know that "I teach their children," having filled up texts for all grade levels in 18 states as a house writer for McGraw-Hill."What does this have to do with the topic of this thread? You've made some comments about the state of the publishing industry and your books which actually fit the topic, but if you want to talk about your work and how people judge you, there's a Goodreads Authors Books folder for that.
I walked away from one 'expert' because they complained that I sometimes used the 'passive voice' (which may be a greater crime in the US than it is over here). I thought to myself 'Do I explain why I'm using the passive voice on these occasions.' I decided not to, frankly the time taken wouldn't have been worth it for any result.
I believe, Becky, that my reason for making the comments was/is related to how Tannera also responded. Perhaps I was unclear as I am not 100% sure where the behavior or situation comes from. I do believe it is connected to attitudes that are a part of the issues which are the title of the thread. For lack of a better word, it is a type of bullying or dominance behavior.
And the reason I made the comment is that I ought to get at least some small amount of consideration as a professional, yet more often than not, I DO NOT. Please see the title of the thread. I am a female. Science. Fiction. Writer.
Oh dear. I am so, so sorry that this discussion has 'taken off' the way it has.It's funny that in reading all the comments, I can agree with someone on some points, but disagree with that same person on others. I am VERY happy that this divergence is there, but I do feel (slightly) sorry for those people who insist (though sometimes not vehemently) on their point of view.
I've been reading SFF for over 50 years (so, yes, I have read the "old guard" too), but never once have I questioned the sex/colour/sexual orientation of the author: it NEVER crossed my mind to do so.
Also, it never crossed my mind to NOT place myself in the MC's character - irrespective of sex/colour/sexual orientation - I became the hero/ine, whatever.
And this is something I think some people have forgotten: we read for enjoyment or escapism, or for the fantasy of something out of this world - which is what story-telling is meant to do. To complain about the author, who has spent time and energy (and possibly blood) in creating something for complete strangers, is worthless and befits no-one anywhere. To complain about the hero/ine who doesn't "fit" with our 'expectations' (or even 'wishes'), is to deny that author the recognition of a brave imagining - something that the majority of us couldn't even hope to match!
So, agreeing to disagree is probably my conclusion. I'm sorry if anyone feels offended by my original post (btw: I frowned quite frequently at the Political Correctness thrown out haphazardly), but I have to think that nurture, in whatever environment we were raised, has caused an awful lot of needless dissent. Bigotry and hypocrisy will continue to exist whatever we wish; one just has to hope that they will die out eventually once we open our minds to equality in all things (and, yes, I know, that is really wishful thinking.)
Carole-Ann wrote: "Oh dear. I am so, so sorry that this discussion has 'taken off' the way it has...."
Carole-Ann, I fully agree with your last post (# 180). You summed it up beautifully.
Carole-Ann, I fully agree with your last post (# 180). You summed it up beautifully.
Michel wrote: "Carole-Ann wrote: "Oh dear. I am so, so sorry that this discussion has 'taken off' the way it has...."Carole-Ann, I fully agree with your last post (# 180). You summed it up beautifully."
Yes, I thought is was a good post as well
Amy wrote: "And the reason I made the comment is that I ought to get at least some small amount of consideration as a professional, yet more often than not, I DO NOT. Please see the title of the thread. I am a female. Science. Fiction. Writer."I was under the impression that the topic was regarding the issues of political correctness, bigotry and hypocrisy, but apparently I was wrong and it's really about you.
My apologies. Carry on.
Thank you, Michel and Jim :)
What we have to remember is that writers often use their books to explore issues that interest them. Just because a writer doesn't share your interests doesn't make them a bad person :-)
>>I was under the impression that the topic was regarding the issues of political correctness, bigotry and hypocrisy, but apparently I was wrong and it's really about you. My apologies. Carry on.>>
Becky, can you understand that the reason that people see only advertising messages from publishers on communities like Goodreads is pretty much what you've said and done here?
There's bigotry, hypocrisy, and political correctness in sci-fi/fantasy circles, just as there is everywhere. It's more out in the open and it's discussed more than in other circles and situations. I just got an invitation to "like" a new book launch web page this a.m. by an African-American author. It is a beautifully-illustrated children's book. Not only was I only the second one of the artist's friends to "like" the book, I saw there were numerous pictures of the author and signings. One was from the "Black Book Fair." She was by herself in an empty room.
So this was a book fair for black people. Like, her book fair was literally racially segregated. It's a book about an African mother and her daughter. I think I would have liked such a book as a child, and I think my daughter would have enjoyed this book when she was small as well. We're not "black."
This title is from a significant (not huge) children's publisher.
She and they do NOT have bandwidth. Is it because the book is "bad" or not of interest? It looks great and has incredible illustrations and the story seems very good.
At any rate, what I care about and what my priorities are right now, are to develop systems to bring the best books to readers. One key part of that is creating a safe place for authors to create. This can be any author; it's less-safe for those who are in less-traditional categories, whether they are simply writing work that is different from prior popular tastes, or whether they are of different ethnicities, or females writing "unexpected" work.
We would like to work and engage on Goodreads. But I hope you do not misunderstand me when I say an author does not need to be exposed to warrantless, baseless criticism in the process of engaging in positive, beneficial interaction with readers. Interaction that may benefit the author and the work, and readers.
Ultimately, our culture will benefit if we are able to move to this type of dialog. There are many models, in many industries of products that are developed and sold not only not in a vacuum, but in collaboration with the consumer. Certainly with respect and deep consideration for the entire process.
So, that is indeed, what I think, and that is indeed why I think there has been so much frustration on all sides, so much anger, so many hurt feelings, and so many complaints.
Yes it is, Becky - ALL ABOUT ME. And about everyone else who thinks like me.
Amy wrote: "Becky, can you understand that the reason that people see only advertising messages from publishers on communities like Goodreads is pretty much what you've said and done here?"I can understand that people, readers, like myself tire of watching authors, like yourself, talk themselves up in every thread they enter. Over and over and over. You made some valid points about the topic at hand, but too often you were making your comments about yourself, personally. You came here and asked people to do market research ABOUT YOURSELF.
"What is it about me and my work that is so repellent or which you find not of interest?" - post 141
And then again:
"Anyone here who does not know who I am, may discern from what I've said and the links I've put who I am. There's also our spare brain, known as "Mr. Google" and I do have a full Goodreads profile with book links. If you think I'm nobody, respectfully, I do not draw my sense of self-worth from this type of thing." - Post 153
And again:
"People on this site alone actually judge that someone like me "can't write" because I've only published 3 novels. They'll see that only 1 is with a "big publisher." They have no context to know I've "fixed" half a dozen more books for writers who turned in work with big problems, or incomplete. They don't know that "I teach their children," having filled up texts for all grade levels in 18 states as a house writer for McGraw-Hill." - Post 173
And again:
"I'm trying to say I've gotten a couple of pretty much worthless beta reads (and two dozen awesome ones) because the volunteers approached the task like I was slush and looked for nitpicks - like informing me that the use of past tense verbs was "passive voice." Tell that to a competent college English teacher who's written grammar sections of texts for the top educational publishers." - Post 174
And again:
"And the reason I made the comment is that I ought to get at least some small amount of consideration as a professional, yet more often than not, I DO NOT." - Post 179
None of this is about being PC, or about bigotry, or hypocrisy, but again and again about you, Amy Sterling Casil, author and publisher.
That's why groups like this one have rules regarding author participation, because SO OFTEN every thread turns into an opportunity for advertising yourself.
If you want to bring the best books to people, as you say, then by all means, do that. But I fail to see how any of the comments I quoted from you have anything to do with that. It reads to me like attention-seeking behavior with a thin veil of "industry" thrown over it so it "qualifies" to be in this thread.
Don't bother replying. I won't be checking this thread anymore. You go on and pat your own back as much as you like.
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
How the World Became Quiet (other topics)Against a Dark Background (other topics)
Blue Remembered Earth (other topics)
2312 (other topics)
Queen of Angels (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Ursula K. Le Guin (other topics)Lord Dunsany (other topics)
J.R.R. Tolkien (other topics)
People are awfully fond of their straw men..."
Some of us are also just prone to hyperbole (speaking about myself). ];P