My Beautiful Spleen is hurting now, folks. I came down with a virus that took me out for about a week. The doc said it was best to tough it out without antibiotics, and I did, but all the hacking I did over the last week left me with a residual ache in my ribs The good news is that I’m feeling much better and writing again.
I’ve met some nice people on Substack who have subscribed to my posts. Thank you to them. And please, share my blog with others.
Let me tell you what I’ve been up to on the writing side. I finished up my latest book – The Fake Memoir of a Mid-List Writer—at the end of last year (2023). I had long given up on attempts to find traditional publishers for my books, as 98% of them have been taken over by Loonie Toon Lefties. They’re pulled up the rope ladders and will allow in ONLY those writers who push the new shiny woke narratives and values. I’ve watched this happen over the last 25 years. Yes, when I published my first book (not the first book I’d written), I started paying attention to what gets published. As the years went by, I saw a trend. I’ll just call it, Whitey Mann Need Not Apply.
Ladies (the real ones, not the new fakes whojust want to get in the ladies’ room to watch), please forgive me. I don’t mean to be sexist. I know the literary world was a male bastion for decades. But that was mostly before my time and certainly noneof my doing. Now I am truly locked out.
“And rightly so,” some will say. Well, there’s nothing I can say to those folks. But to everybody else, I am struggling to write. Writers need readers, and if you cannot publish you won’t reachany. And I’m struggling not to hate the people who have openly told me, ‘too bad. We own publishing now. Live with it.’
Yes… you in the corner... I know. I can ‘self-publish’ on Amazon Kindle. And I have. But… I write in two basic categories—literary and genre. Literary Fiction is the fiction of ideas. It tends to be more internal, more ambiguous, more concerned with big ideas like existentialism, family sagas, sociological change, the Great Civilizational Conflicts… While genre is more in the entertainment realm—the law of the jungle—Tarzan, High Noon—Noire Detective Fiction, Romance, Space Marines, two men fighting to the death over a half-eaten Krispy Kreme glazed donut found in a dump after the world has burned to the ground—those type of things. This kind of writing can easily find an audience in the ‘Indy Publishing World,’ but not the literary one. Genre people—who spend most of their reading time on-line, or on their ebooks—have Amazon Prime and ‘borrow’ books for free. They are not into ‘hoity toity’ literary fiction. For me to reach the people who are, I have to publish ‘commercially’ through Traditional Publishing Houses. And as I stated earlier, their new masters will not allow people of my demographic in.
Someone shouts out… “Why do you give a shit? Why should we?”
Well, that’s a good question. Let me put it this way, which of the following books do you think ‘altered’ the thinking of more people—To Kill a Mockingbird or Gone With the Wind? One had a great romance, beautiful actresses and actors, lots of pretty frilly dresses and neat, ironed uniforms, and a palatial mansion, while the other had a modest-looking moral man taking a stand against injustice. Yes, they both sold millions of copies. One left its readers with the refreshing feeling you get after a good musical performance or a nice glass of Doctor Pepper over ice. The other left readers with a feeling of unease over the injustices of the past (there always will be injustice) and the notion that sometimes you have to stand up and take a side.
So… my latest book, The Fake Memoir of a Mid-List Writer, a biopic that follows a young man around in the 70s, also holds a candle to that time in America. The POV character takes note of what he sees around him—maybe not immediately, but later—and then ‘contemplates’. He makes judgements using the values of his era, not the ‘new and improved’ values of ourmodern era.
This is a big problem for the moderns who own Publishing now. The only POV character they will have (after ensuring that he-she checks the gender/sex/race/ethnicity boxes) is one who runs the latest ‘American(?)’ software with the certified mindset. If the POV character in your 70s novel has the moral toolbox and thoughts of a 2020s character, you just might see that rope being lowered down to you. But if not, forget it. This is where I am currently.
To get a Traditional Publishing Contract you must have an agent. But now, just like the people who run Publishing, most agents are of the new mind-set. And if your novel doesn’t obsess over the plight of a young woman inconvenienced now by having to go to the next state to abort her baby, or an illegal immigrant who manages to get into America and gets lots of free stuff (from your tax dollars) but discovers that he-she cannot vote… Well, you get the picture. What’s a writer fella to do?
Now there is now a back door into Traditional Publishing. Contests. A couple dozen or so Publishers (mostly small boutique ones) have contests now. You don’t need an agent to enter. There is a fee, nominal, $20--$35. What do you win? You win a publishing contract. That means an advance (usually no less than $1,000.00, and up to $10,000). That’s not bad, given that most ‘mid-list’ authors get about $6,000 for an advance on royalties. Then the publisher publishes your book—average wait, about a year. Also, since your book is ‘the winner,’ usually the publisher will do a lot of publicity to garner readers for you and profits for them, and you. It’s all good.
AND NOW… DRUM ROLL… THE POINT OF THIS POST…
Since the new year, I have entered my book in about ten contests. I’ve had four ‘declines.’ Three of them did not surprise me, given the racial/sexual politics they publish and promote. I had one ‘close, but no cigar.’ That would be Unleash Lit. I made their ‘long list’ of 17 writers. Likely they received about 250 submissions, so that’s nice, an ‘attaboy.’ Something I can use in future query letters. I’m still waiting to hear from six other contests. For five of them, I’m not holding my breath, given what they publish.
‘Go for it,’ shouts a face in the crowd. ‘You have to try!’
Yes! And I’ve been trying for a long, long time, as those who know me can attest.
AND… There’s one contest where I’ve gotten close… The Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music in Literature.
I entered this on a whim, not sure if my book had enough ‘music’ in it. It seemed a long shot to me. But to my delight I made the ‘short list’ of five writers. I have one chance in five to win. Not bad. And they likely had more than 200 submissions, so being in the top five is pretty good and encouraging as heck. I’ve been in a holding pattern since them, somewhat immobilized till I hear something back.
Every morning I sit down with my coffee and warily scan the incoming emails, wondering if this will be the day. Win or lose, I just want the wait to be over so I can move on to the next step in my writing journey.
So, wish me luck and I will let you know in the future how this all turnes out.
Hi Paul. This is a subset of my email to you in case anyone else is interested or wants to throw tomatoes.
The exclusion by publishers of white males (especially if we're outside that DC-Boston corridor) is a subset of the discrimination being widely practiced throughout Western culture.
White males were in charge for a long time, but I think it's safe to say the decisions made back then were generally not motivated by hatred or ill-will toward women. Granted, there was often indifference toward the interests of colored races, but those men were doing the best they could with the understanding they had at the time.
The current retaliation against men in particular and whites in general is happening in a time when people are supposedly more enlightened. But despite all the modern advantages the new elites are not only practicing discrimination in the other direction but are motivated by hatred. Arguably, what they're doing now is less excusable.
It says something very discouraging about human nature. We're clearly not on a path to a better society. Weath and power corrupt. The people now in power--including those white males who went to ivy league schools and work in the govt--are in an elitist oligarchy designed to exploit the rest of us.
Recognizing this problem is the first step. I guess for the next step we should turn to "Rules for Radicals" (e.g., ridiculing them at every opportunity).