Do-Si-Do your partner; grand right & left

Writers think this, Publishers think that...it's a lopsided square dance. Cue: a tepid rant.

While growing up in Iowa I had square dancing every year during gym class beginning with second grade on through my senior year in high school, that’s eleven years. I’m impressed. That may be more persistence toward a taught skill than anything else we did, except math and maybe reading (not counting recess). Eight kids in a square learned to follow the caller and move to the music.¹

The publishing world is a balancing act. Photo by 青 晨 on Unsplash

Seque. Publishing is not a tomayto, tomahto: potayto, potahto dilemma because I understand that differences in opinion aren’t trivial, and, there does seem a hitch in the relationship between authors and publishers. To be fair, there are also unrealized expectations between media and publishers; indie bookstores and indie publishers; libraries and sales; bookstores and sales reps; “indie bookstores” and distributors; Amazon, booksellers, and publishers; with what authors want when they get published vs. what happens. The book industry is a lopsided square dance.²

Publishing is a rare industry because making a reliable prediction of success is difficult to do. At the very same time emotions and expectations run high. Hope finds fame in the blink of an eye. Publicity can feel like the sound of crickets.

Reading isn’t like eating. If you don’t eat you suffer in real ways. To stop reading you just don’t read. Easiest thing ever. Look away, put the book down. Never pick one up. It’s easier to stop reading than it is to keep reading. Authors and publishers alike need to keep this part of the dance in mind. You’re competing against short social media clips, headline-paced news networks, podcasts, and other substack writers, and folks promoting audio and video. Not to mention the rest of the pulls of life: in my case, bird watching, kayaking, biking, fly fishing, … on and on.

It’s easy to confuse writing with just information transference, which it is, but it’s more. It’s a form of engagement in which tone, style, pace, and word choice play roles. These subtleties can be sidestepped, but when they are something is lost. Time spent engaged in focus is necessary. Writing done well provides a complete activity. Writing that’s presented as a recording, a video, or a podcast inherently misses an author’s hoped-for effect.³

To be confronted by the cold abstractions of printed sentences is to look upon language bare, without the assistance of either beauty or community. Thus, reading is by its nature a serious business. It is also, of course, an essentially rational activity. — Neil Postman

The best writing isn’t as good when made to be listened to, turned into a trailer, or a YouTube video. In most cases, people say, the movie wasn’t as good as the book. It’s why a review or interview is not the full story but a version of the story. It’s why “cliff notes” are scoffed at. Similarly, that’s why we need some sort of watermark warning or indication when AI is utilized. If saving time was the point of reading (or learning) then not reading at all saves the most time. If the approximation is good enough, then that’s a problem too.⁴

Authors feel the urgency of their ideas; transferring them to a reader is the challenge. I sense people worry about their likelihood of success before they flush out their content. Manipulating with AI-generated headlines still makes your headline pointless if your idea isn’t what you want. We’ve all seen those beautiful headlines and subtitles that promise the world and instead send you to the Strait of Wide Yawns. Being a writer takes a long time, requires being alone, and then lots of edits. It’s easy to say there are shortcuts, but hard to prove that’s the case. Cheerleading is part of success not the reason for success.

Look, without writers, there’d be no use for publishers. I get this. If writers had their way, they’d publish their books as soon as they finished them, and in some ways that’s what’s happening. It’s called vanity and self-publishing as well as book packaging. It is possible to sidestep the “system” of tradition—the publisher who vets a book, designs, promotes and sees to the best of their ability that the book has a better chance of success than not. I find it odd that I’ve become a traditional press at this point. Yet, if tradition is adapting, inch by inch with the times; while trying to maintain the quality of writing and production of a tangible book then, okay, I’m traditional. I started publishing before email was a thing, my first goal then was the same as now: to create the best book possible and only then move on to platforms and social media and marketing.

Back to traditional for a moment. Think of how many things we do that are “traditional.” Is driving on the right side of the road safer, not really, it’s a tradition in the USA. Black clothing for mourning ceremonies. Children go to some sort of school as part of growing up …

Traditional, just like the word independent, is misunderstood. I get that change is inevitable. Yet, I know a lot of authors still like to show off about being published by a traditional publisher, in fact, most never stop reminding you if they are part of the big publishing houses. I find the ones who go in “non-traditional” ways are the ones most often hustling backward to prove their decision. Sure, a small number of these authors’ work makes it big, but most flop, because it turns out that writing, designing, promoting, printing, selling, and doing everything (or paying to have it all work) is a difficult challenge.

I believe self-published authors help me in the end. It’s like the trick of voluntary self-regulation being utilized in Iowa with water quality, or with the research on driver-less Ubers relocating to Arizona. People left to do whatever they feel best, will enjoy their perceived success until, well, they don’t. Then they feel injustice and blame. Find human errors and a faulty system in place. It always helps to devise a “villain” like say, traditional publishers. I get that I’m not regulated, but I do try and use the best-known practices for success. Part of this is the slow motion of the process as a measure. I repeat what I said earlier:

Publishing is a rare industry because making a reliable prediction of success is difficult to do.

So back to the words. The writing. People want attention for what they care about, I get that. Taking the time to write a book means you have a point-of-view, a “story” you want to share, it’s a call for attention. As a publisher, I know even the meekest authors have to possess some bit of Superego, and that’s a good thing. If you don’t believe in yourself, I don’t want to spend my “one wild and precious life”⁵ working on your writing.

Okay, we’ve reached intermission.

Stretch your legs, go get your life together. I’ll continue this post in a few days.

On words we go.

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I’m happy to be part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative here on Substack. To subscribe to it and read high-quality writing check it out here. The group covers the natural world, food, politics, sports, writing, and so much more. The group leaves no topic or part of the state untouched.

1. The history of square dancing in the schools was, it turns out, not a pretty part of the curriculum during my “formative” years. I am just speaking about what I experienced.

2. A lot of what’s “off” is the misunderstanding of the word and concept of independence in publishing and business.

3. One person’s reading speed isn’t another’s, one’s voice has an influence, you get it.

4. Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death explains this.

5. Mary Oliver A Summer Day A poet amidst poets she was so good!