Indie Writer 2 – Talk the Talk

Before you can walk it you gotta talk it – so there are some things you’ll just have to know.

The following is the preamble from a piece that may one day see the light of day on my site: “The Copy-it-Right Manifesto”.

The reader was and always will be the one with the power. To power to like or dislike, accept, reject, buy, deny. In short, the power to choose. I hold this truth to be self-evident.

The writer was and always will be a provider of entertainment by way of story telling. This, too, is kinda obvious.

The publisher was and always will be likened to the cruddy cheese one finds under the foreskin in cases of urinary infection. This is a definition I hope, with all sincerity, will pass into common usage.

Picture two cogs that fit perfectly together. The teeth mesh exactly. The alignment seamless and self-supporting. A mechanism of beauty. This is writer and reader.

What the fuck is that third cog doing there? Repetitively squeaking away about how essential it is, as if it invented the mechanism. As if to say the other two cogs wouldn’t exist without it.

Enough!

A 90:10 split in favour of the publisher may be common business practice but it’s a very long way from being a fair deal. Rather, it’s exploitation.

Enough!

The dumbing down of the writer (and ultimately the reader) by making ever narrower the definitions of story and genre based on what little creativity publishers can harness in service of marketing is digging a hole for all of us. Different is not synonymous with un-sellable.

Enough!

Brothers, sisters, make this your mantra, and may the ink be with you.

Om.