#'if the public doesn't know we're giving israel arms people will surely stop asking us to ceasefire' WHO ELSE IS SELLING WEAPONS TO ISRAEL?

[ahaura]

(Nov. 2)

@truthout: In a highly unusual move, the White House has requested for it to be able to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy, without oversight from Congress or the public.

[cara-delaney-author]

Author brands 'n shit, I guess

So I somehow managed to lose a post I really wanted to reblog to an unexpected re-log. The post was about a Vox article talking about how the concept of a personal brand and a platform is poisoning artistic industries, particularly writing and music. So we're just doing a new post instead.

The article makes some really good points, especially about how now more than ever, authors (and musicians, but I write books so that's what we're mostly looking at) can't just do the thing that's in their job description. We have to do the marketing as well. And that is such a wild concept to me, who grew up convinced that I would one day land a publishing deal and be a famous author. I had this idea of how the traditional publishing industry worked, and for a long time, that idea was fairly accurate. Now?

If we now also have to do most of the marketing for our book to even stand a chance.

If advances are shrinking to the point where even successful authors are forced back into day jobs.

If print-on-demand means that nobody has to shell out thousands for a print run anymore without knowing that they'll even sell a fraction of the books.

What do we even need the traditional publishing industry for anymore?

Midlist books and authors are disappearing. The focus is on bestsellers, on "the next big thing", to the exclusion of almost everything else. That's not a sustainable plan. Sure, in theory, producing nothing but bestsellers would make you thrive. But you can't. You simply cannot guarantee that 100% of your books are going to be bestsellers. The vast majority are not. Even big pre-existing audiences don't guarantee that. Just look at these incredibly funny numbers provided by the New York Times, about celebrity books that "flopped". And I'm using that word loosely - tens of thousands of copies sold are GREAT, actually. But when you calculated your sales potential based on an audience of millions? It's nothing.

This really pokes a lot of holes into the idea that big platform = big sales, but here we are, being asked to flap our arms about and make silly voices in funny little TikToks to promote our work. When that should be the publisher's job. So, again - what are they even still good for, if you aren't coming to them already famous?

Though the article also comes with some questionable takes, albeit when it cites other writers. Specifically when it cites Defector writer Israel Daramola about music criticism, and how more and more professional outlets are closing or get incorporated into other publications. How this means that the ecosystem of criticism is shifting to "a loose collection of Youtubers and influencers", and how "This has all helped produce a mass of music fans who don’t understand the value of criticism and outright detest being told the things they like might suck." Which is just so baffling to me. Of course they don't like that! Do you?! If you think the point of criticism is to forcibly explain to people why the thing they enjoy is bad, actually, you really suck at criticism. Criticism is meant to give you an idea before you engage with something, of what the quality might be and whether or not you'll like it. It's not meant to make you go "oh, well, if this artist I love is bad, I should probably not listen to them". Stop doing that! Let people enjoy things, it doesn't matter if you, personally, think the thing in question is "objectively not good". People are allowed to enjoy "bad" things, for fuck's sake. This is the exact kind of elitism that drives people away from professional, thoughtful and educated critique.

I find this particular citation odd, because Daramola does make a point much more related to the subject of the article - that the reduction of music criticism to subsections and listicles is a symptom of a similar problem as "author brands" in the music sphere. If you don't already have a big platform, a successful brand, you won't find support. Budding artists struggle the same as budding authors, where the industry whose entire business model is built upon taking risks on new talent and building that talent up is now refusing to do that, and shifting all of that work onto the artists. This has very little to do with the audience, and everything to do with the business people calling the shots behind the scenes.

There is a whole lot wrong with my industry these days. Art gets more and more commodified. The content doesn't matter anymore as long as you, the author, can sell a lot of it. Once you have proven yourself, the publishing gods might decide that you're a guaranteed success, and deign to give you the kind of support they should have given you from the beginning. Only now, there is no risk for them anymore. That risk was all taken by you, the person with the most to lose.

One last time - if that's how traditional publishing works now, what is it even still good for?

And I haven't even gotten into how this entire system is also rigged heavily in favour of the (white, attractive) Anglosphere, while the platforms themselves have global reach. So the Anglosphere is actively sucking the air out of the room with its ever-growing cultural hegemony even on the level of individual artists. The article touches on this, too, though it brushes past that pretty quickly, and one of the linked articles in the section basically just says "if you're from a different culture, consider simply ignoring that and doing it the American way". Fabulous.

I don't have any quick, easy fixes for this problem. I don't think anybody has. But if you're a reader, if you're a music lover, maybe next time you're looking for something new, consider looking past the big hits. Ignore the huge platforms, and maybe go and find some indie artists to try. There's a lot of gold to be mined here, even if it's getting harder and harder to find. It takes a little more effort, but it would mean the world to the indie artists on the other side.