- Become reasonably famous
- Scribble down some sentences composed of half-baked ideas, random clichés, mixed metaphors and thinly veiled analogies
- Employ a ghost-writer under the guise of an “editor” (i.e. me)
- Get your PR manager to ring the MD of a large publishing concern and tell him that you are writing a book
- Sign a contract
Don’t bother wasting your time learning the craft of writing for years. Don’t even bother with revising, revising, revising; just write down what you have to say in two weeks and leave it at that! The “editor” will fix it for you! Then you can get on with more important things like what you will wear to your book signing.
No wonder real writers feel jaded and despondent about the publishing industry in this country.
And for the record, the bullshit the publishers feed you about how the book-buying public dictates the demand is just that — absolute bullshit. It’s the publishers who decide what you will read, or more to the point, what choices you have available for reading. Why else would bookstore shelves be groaning under the weight of Matthew Reilly?
3 Comments
Thursday, August 9, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Similarly, why the hell does Garfield still exist? I’m pretty sure it’s not because of public demand…
Thursday, August 9, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Garfield was a waste of space the first time around in the 80s. Why his lifeless, insipid corpse was exhumed for another generation to endure is anyone’s guess.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 9:51 am
I’d rather be a well paid ghost-writer than famous. Famous people are often the jaded ones.
As for Garfield and dashofpanache’s comment; it is public demand. Garfield, the smart-ass cat that secretly talks to you. See, Garfield is the comforting architype for women that can’t have orgasms and/or who are at least emotionaly challenged. There’s a subliminal metephor in there somewhere.