The Reason the Novel-Reading Man has Disappeared: How the Publishing Industry has Failed Readers and Why & How to Cure its Maladies
Geeze this is getting tiring to write about!
The Case of the Missing Readers
That’s right… Twitter has struck again as the Lefties in the industry have asked themselves; Why did the Novel-Reading Man Disappear? For the what? Millionth time this year?
This is not news. This is not shocking. This is also not true.
The Novel-Reading Man did not disappear. He’s still out there. He’s just not available online except on sites like Royal Road, or on Patreon or even in some parts of Substack (as my account can attest to and others also). When not online he’s at conventions and down the street waiting for you to go deliver a book to him for 20$. Why? Because he loves reading and loves novels.
He didn’t disappear, it is only that Dead Pub has lost her way. Like a ship that has lost its navigator she has forgot the prow from the starboard side, to the engine room, she is headed full speed for a nearby iceberg in imitation of the Titanic and her incompetent captain. That is what has happened.
How could it not happen? The Industry forgot how to sell books, how to reach Men, because it was Men who were chased out of the Industry. I mean 3 Spaniards had to pretend to be one woman in order to be published in recent years for heaven’s sake! Male authors are forced to pretend to be women or blacks or something in order to get published.
The Industry has no interest in reversing this and while it might be fun to imagine them doing so, they won’t. They are dead. There is no hope. There is no prestige that way and instead there is naught but embarrassment, despair and mental health problems.
Now is the winter of their discontent. One that is rightful and all authors that go that way and not the way of say an Indie Press such as
or something are doing themselves more harm than good. It is not by hoping for rescue by companies like Ark Press, Baen, Amazon and so on that Literature will be saved and readers found.Instead focus on your craft, figure out how to sell and reach readers and keep grinding. Git gud so to speak.
The Industry has long been dying, and those writers who would cling to it are as the blind leading the blind, they are akin to those who out of curiosity set out to sea in ancient Greece, in one of their myths to listen out for the Sirens only to be startled when not only do they find death but their ship hits the craggy rocks and sinks beneath the weaves.
No one in the Old Pub space is coming to your rescue. They can’t even rescue themselves. They have had a monopoly for 100 years and have sunk it into the ground. And in recent times it has become clear that Amazon’s had a monopoly and utterly misused and are incredibly incompetent at managing the industry they have complete control over.
You might well ask yourself ‘why does it have to be this way?’ which is a fair question. Most authors have no great desire to enter into marketing or to really sweat about promotion. It’s a hassle. But the reason why it is this way is that the Industry suffered to that fateful issue that troubles all empires eventually; entropy.
It grew and grew and grew until it could no longer grow anymore. It had no real rival economically and culturally, and had total dominion over the world in some ways. The trouble is that there needed to be more reforms, more renovations and more innovation but the trouble is that it has not allowed these things. In a lot of ways it became like a multi-headed hydra that has had all its heads tangled with each other so that it is quite literally strangling the life from itself.
What is more is that the people in the industry are spiritually and philosophically dead inside. They have no great life-force within themselves on these levels, and have thus sought to do little more than strangle the life from the industry they are stewards of.
Because they’re all post-modernist and living in a strange echo-chamber they can’t hear your voice over that of their own echoing back at themselves. It is tragic but the trouble is that the purging fire at this point is not only natural but ultimately desirable.
That which does not grow falls into stagnation and death. This is the way of the world so that the Industry will soon suffer a total crash. This will be good and allow for some real change and reforms to what has grown to be too big to succeed.
It is ultimately quite like the Roman Empire of the 5th century that has outgrown itself and philosophically has lost its raison d’etre and lost sight of the reason for its existence. It broke first into two with the wealthy east and the sickly west. The latter was to be broken and shattered but over the next few centuries was to get back on its feet and in time come to surpass the east. This is why the Industry should perhaps fall now, so that when a new Publishing industry rises from the ashes not unlike a phoenix it will do so with a greater deal of glory and vitality.
Because the vitality has long since left it. It has had no competitors and has long since come to regret its own existence as it is too marxist, too stupid, and too large and too arrogant to truly thrive anymore.
This does bring up one major question though: So what are our options as authors?
This is where I must as political stackers might well turn to
or , or turn, or Philosophy/Culture Stackers might well turn to , or Comics guys might well turn to now turn to Brian Niemeier who is a wiser head in this space than I. the wise old sage of New Pub, comment on his blog the following facts about how Men have been treated by Old Pub:“Here’s the part the publishing elite will never admit: Men don’t resent books. They resent the contempt oldpub has shown them for twenty years:
Being told the stories they loved were “problematic.”
Watching every franchise they grew up with gutted to deliver half-baked lectures
Seeing every male character neutered, humiliated, or erased
Listening to publishing execs declare their tastes backward, toxic, or irrelevant.
You can only spit on a customer for so long before he stops paying you.
And that’s exactly what happened.”
Now he’s released recently a new book (one of many) and has shown an in-depth knowledge of how to sell, how to publish and do so successfully and make a living off of one’s books (or a respectable living). So that one really must conclude that it is a crime he’s not employed by someone like Amazon or in with the Industry.
The trouble is that they have no wish to be involved with him. This is a problem because if someone knows something, knows the problems with an industry and knows how to solve the problems shouldn’t you listen to him? But logic is wasted on the Industry-elites as he calls them.
The reason is the stuff of legend, the sort of thing that the likes of
, and others have complained about at some length in a number of posts. The problem is that the Industry is ruled by people who don’t read, and don’t care to ever read. They are people who are convinced that their readers are the problem not their methods.There’s been no innovation in the Industry in nearly 50 or 70 let alone 100 years when it is desperately needed. The problems are not irreversible and the damage not fatal and yet the industry would prefer to continue to stab itself in the guts.
Brian now is the mastermind alongside
who helped our Crowdfund succeed as it has (that’s right dear Readers, they helped market it until it crossed over the 800$ mark it has recently reached). So I’ve come to trust their judgment on the Industry quite a bit more than most others the world over. You can find the Crowdfund here as it is still open (and will remain so until August 1st).Men are Reading? But What?
Just what are Men reading these days? As discussed before in prior essays, they are reading apparently the Classics, Sci-Fi, Fantasy and other high-cerebral stories that are around.
This means that if you’re wanting to find and reach the Novel Reading Man you must write, write and write some more!
You must also do so better than it has been done for the past 40 years. The reason for that is quite simple; people like the Classics so you must reach the same heights. Can it be done? Absolutely.
Because someday people will look back on our era, on the break-out novels and call those classics. You think that every writer out therein the 19th century thought they were writing the greatest novel of their generation? Get real! You could be writing a break-out and don’t even realize it.
Certainly it might be more probable that you’re not and that you’re building yourself up to doing so. But the simple fact of the matter is that you won’t know until you try… and try… and try… and keep trying until you all of a sudden just do it.
Homer doesn’t exist to be simply looked on with awe but to be surpassed. Literary Ambition isn’t a bad thing, and Ambition contrary to what the school system has taught you isn’t a dirty word. As I always say, or better yet Achilles has said better than I ever could in the movie Troy:
The question remains; will you take it?
So you must determine with this knowledge that you WANT and NEED to succeed, how do you do so? Okay, you might well write the greatest epic of our generation, but what is the point of it if you don’t sell it?
The answer is that you must sell it, you must get it before others. The question is not why but how here.
The answer is that you must use every means available to you that can humanly be put to use. You can turn to
for the Corncrake Magazine and Podcast’s support, or those of others like them. You can turn to Bros Krynn, or for assistance.You can start up a youtube channel, a spotify one and start one up elsewhere to post up audio versions of your stories.
You can post one story on Amazon for free via Kindle, you can post up a few on Royal Road and elsewhere.
These can all be done online.
Offline you can order 400 Author copies, go to Dragon-Con, or to a major convention in Quebec City, or in Japan, or Germany or wherever you are or near to. Sell those books and sell some more.
This is what you can do.
The Literary Crown lies in the gutter, in a deeper mire than the actual national crowns are. It not only should be your desire but your duty to seize that Literary Crown.
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Also Crown of Blood has a new edition, with maps, character bios and more!
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