Trick with a Knife

It’s not me…it’s the industry!

Mar 16

Caleb J RossLiterature, Publishing 1 Comment

This, strangely, makes me feel good:

It’s such a tough market for male novelists I urge nearly every unpublished male author to publish through an entrepreneurial publisher until the majors beat a door in his path.

“Good” is not what I should feel. I should be offended by what could be construed as a sexist publishing industry (following the logic that books aimed at males aren’t marketed enough to seed a male audience). Maybe I should be offended that males, if literature equates knowledge, are perceived as dummies. I’m not. The industry isn’t sexist and all men aren’t dumb. I feel good because this statement allows me to reposition my laziness as commercially skirted.

Also, it makes me even more confident of my decisions (I say that like I had a real choice) to place my work with independent and burgeoning publishers. Would I have taken a deal from a large, corporate press? Yeah. But then I would have had to spend all of my time simply claiming street credentials instead of actually earning them.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyesplash/ / CC BY-ND 2.0