Independent publishing is truly an amazing thing. No longer are authors restricted by guidelines and time limits to complete their work of art. Everything is in their hands and the creative control has been empowering to millions. Someone who thought they would never be able to publish now can through supportive websites like Amazon, itunes, Barnes and Noble, and smashwords for as little or as much money as they want. They can write whatever they would like without someone turning them down through a piece of paper in the mail or agreeing to the manuscript but later butchering it because it was "too big" or had "too much steam" in it. However, as with everything in life, this choice has its flaws. The community isn't perfect, we experience cyber bullying near daily.
Authors can turn against fellow authors. Bloggers against fellow bloggers. Readers stuck in-between pointless battles that suddenly emerged because someone said something rude and hateful on the internet. One of the latest issues I have seen pop up has me both confused and annoyed. Ladies and gentlemen if you have not heard this before around the indie world let me introduce to you- selling out.
Sell outs.
Whatever you want to say.
Now writing can be classified into three categories: a passion, a hobby, and a business. Yes you can mix the three but let me explain myself a little more first...
*A passion is needed for any sort of art to flow gracefully from the mind of the artist. But typically those who are ONLY passionate do this in their free time and only share it among their friends or family. Sure, one day they may take it to the next level and allow the public eye to view it as well but the passionate artist isn't ready for that leap yet.
*A hobby is something done on the side that usually isn't sold. An artist who looks at their writing as a hobby may take those pieces of work and publishing them on free reading websites so the public can enjoy it at their leisure. Now those who decide to sell it will have their prices very low and often be found giving out copies tons of copies for free because they would rather a stranger read it than they receive any sort of cash payment for it. The reward is found in being told their work was good and shown appreciation for the opportunity to read it at little to no cost.
*A business is something gearing to make money from the get-go and typically run by a pre-set plan. An artist who takes their work and turns it into a business must develop and use the mind of a business person. There are marketing strategies brewing, routine schedules make and put into immediate use, constant book ideas being jotted down. What works better, what doesn't? They will certainly find out.
You can classify as any one of these, or any mix of the three, and it is perfectly fine. There is no wrong way to go about writing and distributing (or not as the case may be) your work. Which is why this term "sell outs" is so mind boggling. Writing simply is, there are no bad ideas just as there are no more original ideas. You can have a unique spin on it that will make it yours but lets face it, every storyline possible has already been done- and that is perfectly fine! We, the readers, love them!
We want them!
Give them to us! (Please.)
I'm going to quote some remarks I've seen around (no names added, I'm not that kind of a person) and break down exactly why I find these comments to be utterly confusing, if not irritating:
"God, would you look at her? She is totally selling out just to make sales."
If they enjoy that genre, why wouldn't they write about it? Passion or hobby, the money doesn't matter. They were simply inspired by a fantastic book and wanted to do their own take on the genre. Now if they are doing it for the money please explain to me how that is wrong? Self publishing is a business and most of those authors are trying to help support themselves on their work. There is nothing wrong with following a trend to help that cause out. If you own a clothing store and only sold sundresses but those weren't selling, wouldn't you change to something else to help sell your merchandise? You need the income to survive and there is absolutely (I can't seem to stress this enough) NOTHING wrong with that!
"She is coming out with an MC book, how cute. She was writing paranormal before it, wonder what made her change her mind? Couldn't be the sales, could it? Gasp."
I take this one personally because when I write I jump all around the genre spectrum. I don't believe in limiting myself to one thing and thanks to the self publishing option I don't have to. If an idea comes to an author it comes with a drive, an urge, a push, that makes the idea seem one number on a list of priorities. Even if it isn't completed or published publicly, it HAS to be written. Muses do not care what trends and what doesn't.
"What a sell out! Her cover isn't even that attractive and I bet she doesn't know what she is writing. She's just doing it to follow the crowd."
I'll let you in on a little secret- a lot of authors BS their way through their books. All you need is a little grain of truth for it to hook someone in and then the rest rarely matters. Now please take into consideration that there are somethings that this should not apply to because you may insult someone. I have a friend who lives the BDSM lifestyle and finds a lot of these books to be an insult to herself, her husband, and her other friends in the community. I know another friend who was raped, so seeing a rape victim wrongly played out, or even glorified in some of these dark eroticas, insults her and scares her. This is why a lot of authors research the current topic in their WIPs before putting it out in the world. Unless you know for a fact that the author did absolutely no research by checking their computers history or getting a confession, the comment above is irrelevant and flat out rude.
I could keep going on but it would basically be the same thing repeated over and over. In my opinions "sell outs" don't exist. The term is a glimpse at the person who said it, not the person it was directed at. If you want to write fan-fic, then write fan-fic. If you want to write something weird and unusual, then write something weird and unusual. If you want to write what is currently trending, then do it baby!
You can't write something you don't want to write. The project will completely fail. So don't worry about the comments and remarks on your choice, do whatever your heart- or muse- tells you to do.
And please, for the love of everything literature, lets get rid of this ridiculous, pointless term and get back to focusing on what really matters- the next book in our lives. ♥
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