Zach WeinersmithI'm sure there's a tendency to always view the past as better, but the social-media-ification of the Internet has really sucked a lot of the joy out of entertaining people. When it was peripheral to the broader Internet, you spent most of your time making stuff. Now you gotta learn 8 to 12 platforms that mostly want you to act like an employee of their algorithm.
It's bad for consumers too, I think. Reddit has recently gone more in this direction and now I have beloved small reddits that don't pop up on my feed, and meanwhile it's trying to get me to watch videos of people making stupid food recipes, half-true mystery factoids, aliens, personal gossip-sharing, etc. I assume they do this because it works but it's seriously degraded the experience.
How to rebel? That's the question. Personally, I'm leaning into making more depthy more thoughtful stuff. Bea Wolf - longform poetry. A City on Mars - a three-year research project. Oddly, traditional publishing feels like part of the rebellion, because even a bottomline-obsessed publisher still gives a damn about what's in the books and what it says about them. They look bad and feel bad about making trash. Social media breaks that relationship.
One more thing that sucks? Because I can't directly tell my followers about new books and things anymore, since almost nobody reads RSS and facebook/twitter/instagram only feed people viral content, I have to be *way more annoying*. Have you noticed how authors don't just make books but have to *become their books* in online branding personae for months at a time? That's because it's the only way to reach you.
KewlCat@ZachWeinersmith Wait a minute. Isn't all that your publisher's job!? Advertising? Reaching people who might enjoy your work in order to sell it to make a profit (for them) or to make a living (for you)??
BTW thanks a lot for https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/rss ;-)
Karawynn Long 🦊✍🏻🏳️🌈😷♿Hahahaha. If only publishing actually worked that way for more than 1% of authors.
@karawynn @ZachWeinersmith more like "pub_leech_ers" you mean?
@KewlCat @karawynn I haven't met any bad actors in publishing. I'm sure they exist but like... if you just want to make money, I doubt you go into editing books. I think the deal is just that publishers gotta make a profit. If you have a pre-existing audience, you are lower risk, so they are more likely to buy your books and/or pay you more. But honestly, the fact that Bea Wolf got published shows it ain't just about money. That was insanely risky.
@KewlCat @karawynn I would also guess (and it is just a guess!) that the bankable stuff is partially done to allow more risky bets. So yeah, if some pop singer wants to make a generic picture-book, by all means. This is a huge percent of all modern picture books. On the other hand, if the company is making money, you can find the Maurice Sendaks and give them a shot.
"the bankable stuff is partially done to allow more risky bets"
That's always been only half the story, but also publishing used to work a lot more like that than it does now. Year by year, decade by decade, the publisher rights land grab has expanded and the basic level of support afforded the average author has eroded.
The Big Five don't make many "risky bets" now (when you have a million bucks, buying a couple hundred $1 lottery tickets is no real risk).