Considering the question that is the title of this post I think it worth starting with a bit of background (covered before in some degree, but worth revisiting). Specifically, circa 2010, while self-publishing was not new, the proliferation of the e-book reader and print-on-demand publishing, significantly by way of Amazon, made part of self-publishing much easier. Writing, editing, copyediting were as costly as ever. But the cost of physically reproducing and distributing the book fell dramatically. For nothing up front anyone could take a manuscript, upload it, and in days have it on sale at retailers all around the world. Meanwhile, if there was still the problem of promotion, there was optimism that the Internet could facilitate that at similarly low cost--and that things generally were looking up. It seemed easier to get people to take chances on 99 cent e-books than on more expensive print works, and e-books were supposed to be moving toward dominance of the market; while it was to be hoped that the self-published would develop ways and means to publicize themselves, and win their way toward acceptance. There were, for instance, notions of book blogs providing a promotional ecosystem for the self-published writer.
Alas, the traditional publishers, faced with the disruption of their business by the e-book, did what companies usually do in the face of such challenge--fight back against disruption, and not by becoming "more competitive" but rather any way they could fair or unfair, and as is usually the case when established firms fight back from their position of advantage with every means at their disposal, they succeeded. The containment of the e-book (I suspect fewer people have e-readers now than did so in 2015) meant the containment of the self-published to a significant degree, all as the Internet, the utility of which for low-cost promotional efforts was probably always far lower than cyber-utopians would have had the public believe, became a lot less conducive to such efforts, with the web increasingly crowded, and search engines, social media and the rest increasingly "enshittified," fragmenting online life so that only big, well-funded, operations had much chance of reaching a wider public, to the disadvantage of the self-published, with this including not only book writers but bloggers, who found their audiences disappearing.
Likely significant in that has been the evolution of the Internet in the broadband era, away from the written word, and toward audiovisual content, often taken in over small screens carried by people on the go. The vlog replaced the blog, while people gravitated away from Facebook to TikTok--as reading generally collapsed. Consider, for instance, how the young adult book boom went bust back in 2015--not coincidentally, about the time that a majority of young people had acquired smart phones. Consider, too, how even as the e-book was contained, the sale of the mass market paperback collapsed (which is why, very likely, you have noticed the disappearance of the paperback racks at the supermarkets, convenience stores and other retail outlets you frequent).
The result is that I suspect that, all other things being equal, getting any self-published work to an audience requires doing more for less than was the case a decade ago--maybe much more for much less.
Of course, all things are not equal. And therein lie the questions that you probably should ask when considering the endeavor, specifically "Is there anything that will give this book a chance in the face of all that?" And if the answer to the first question is "'No,'" "Is what I have to get out there so important that it is worth my while to do that anyway?"
I admit that it can be very unsatisfying to ask a question and get in return another question. However, it is an honest opinion--which it seems to me is far more likely than you are likely to find in most places on the web, where all we hear from are the elitists of traditional publishing who think the self-published author has no right to be in the same market as they, and the services looking to bully and frighten the self-published author into handing over their money so that they profit whether the author themselves has any chance of achieving their own goals or not.
Saturday, April 20, 2024
Politics, Art, Hypocrisy
After all, in treating any subject--or refusing to treat that subject--one makes choices in which there is a politics, even if only at any implicit or unconscious level.
The result is that the condemnation is not of political art but of art the critic does not like--with, given the tendency toward Establishment politics of any critic likely to have a major platform, what they do not like dissent.
Of course, they are free to not like something for taking a view different from their own. Everybody likes having their view of the world validated, and dislikes having it challenged, and one or the other may be part of their experience of an art work. The problem is that rather than forthrightly owning to their prejudices they promulgate that double standard--because they are lacking in sufficient self-awareness to recognize it (as they will not if they are people of conventional outlook, as most people are), because they are too cowardly to admit to what they do recognize in the work and in themselves (specifically that they are not broad-minded enough to stand the disagreement), or simply because the admission would make more difficult the hatchet job they so delight in doing on a work that displeases them (or which, their feelings apart, may simply be required of them by peers, editors or anyone else).
As all this indicates, looking at a work with which one disagrees, appraising its good qualities and bad, and then discussing that openly and freely, is much, much more difficult than most realize--and frankly beyond many of those who strut about calling themselves professional critics.
Tom Clancy: Another View
Some time ago I came across Keith Pille's analysis of Tom Clancy's novels.
The approach he takes differs greatly from mine. Where in considering the sensibility of the books what was uppermost in my mind were the events of the day, and the larger tendency of America's political life (the ascent of "post-Vietnam" right-wing backlash, the neoliberal and neoconservative ascendancies that benefited so much from them, the "Second Cold War"), Pille's stress is more cultural and generational--examining Clancy's world view as that of a "boomer dad," for whom football and lawn-mowing are hugely important signifiers. Some of it works well, some less so. (Pille is entirely right when he remarks how wrong Clancy was about the effects that foreign attacks on U.S. soil would have on American political life, but has little to say about why Clancy was so wrong--and I think the cultural politics-minded use of the "boomer dad" world-view as a lens is simply less conducive to that.) Still, it is on the whole an interesting and worthwhile reader for anyone up for a critical take on the books.
The approach he takes differs greatly from mine. Where in considering the sensibility of the books what was uppermost in my mind were the events of the day, and the larger tendency of America's political life (the ascent of "post-Vietnam" right-wing backlash, the neoliberal and neoconservative ascendancies that benefited so much from them, the "Second Cold War"), Pille's stress is more cultural and generational--examining Clancy's world view as that of a "boomer dad," for whom football and lawn-mowing are hugely important signifiers. Some of it works well, some less so. (Pille is entirely right when he remarks how wrong Clancy was about the effects that foreign attacks on U.S. soil would have on American political life, but has little to say about why Clancy was so wrong--and I think the cultural politics-minded use of the "boomer dad" world-view as a lens is simply less conducive to that.) Still, it is on the whole an interesting and worthwhile reader for anyone up for a critical take on the books.
On Irony
Recently writing about "the mood of the 1990s" it was completely unironic that the matter of irony came up in my research, and my writing--and so too why so many were drawn to it then and after.
The plain and simple fact of the matter is that in being ironic toward something or someone people get to feel superior, without that superiority conferring on them any responsibility whatsoever.
They get to stand back and watch as other people go over a cliff and be very pleased with themselves about how much smarter they are in not going over cliffs, and how they have no obligation to care about those going over the cliff.
Naturally the self-absorbed, the vain, the selfish, the mean, and of course the snobbish, find it irresistible--and in the process reveal themselves for what they really are.
I suppose there is irony in that too, albeit one they would vehemently deny even if it did not go over their heads.
The plain and simple fact of the matter is that in being ironic toward something or someone people get to feel superior, without that superiority conferring on them any responsibility whatsoever.
They get to stand back and watch as other people go over a cliff and be very pleased with themselves about how much smarter they are in not going over cliffs, and how they have no obligation to care about those going over the cliff.
Naturally the self-absorbed, the vain, the selfish, the mean, and of course the snobbish, find it irresistible--and in the process reveal themselves for what they really are.
I suppose there is irony in that too, albeit one they would vehemently deny even if it did not go over their heads.
"Is This Blog Written by an AI?"
In answer to the question that is the title of this post, "No."
It may well be that others are handing over the job of generating "content" to glorified autocompletes, but I have not done so. What you see here is all mine, and that is how you can expect it to stay, not because I have anything against Artificial Intelligence (quite the contrary), but because the whole reason for this blog's existence is to present my thoughts, my ideas, my posts, not someone or something else's. And so will it remain for the foreseeable future.
It may well be that others are handing over the job of generating "content" to glorified autocompletes, but I have not done so. What you see here is all mine, and that is how you can expect it to stay, not because I have anything against Artificial Intelligence (quite the contrary), but because the whole reason for this blog's existence is to present my thoughts, my ideas, my posts, not someone or something else's. And so will it remain for the foreseeable future.
"Are You a Robot?"
Recently revisiting the theorizing about the "information age" of Alvin Toffler and others I have mainly focused on what has not happened. Our economic life did not "dematerialize" through the radically intensive substitution of information for material inputs in the way he described to produce a different form of civilization which has combined sustainability with abundance. This is exemplified by how where he thought the whole world would be running on renewables by 2025 well into 2024 we remain a long, long way away from any such future according to any conventional reckoning.
Rather than an information age civilization we have at best scraps of one--just as, contrary to the stupid technological hype ever-prevailing, we have only scraps of the imaginings of the past about how far technology was to have progressed by the early twenty-first century. Thus is it the case that, even though we are a long way from Blade Runner-style androids we find ourselves constantly subjected to a dumbed-down Voight-Kampff test as we roam the web, asked "Are You a Robot?" everywhere we go, precisely because a far, far more basic type of "bot" has proven enough to cause a very great deal of confusion within the very modest and ever more decrepit version of an Internet this civilization has managed to build.
Rather than an information age civilization we have at best scraps of one--just as, contrary to the stupid technological hype ever-prevailing, we have only scraps of the imaginings of the past about how far technology was to have progressed by the early twenty-first century. Thus is it the case that, even though we are a long way from Blade Runner-style androids we find ourselves constantly subjected to a dumbed-down Voight-Kampff test as we roam the web, asked "Are You a Robot?" everywhere we go, precisely because a far, far more basic type of "bot" has proven enough to cause a very great deal of confusion within the very modest and ever more decrepit version of an Internet this civilization has managed to build.
The End of Fan Fiction?
The question of whether "fan fiction" is in decline has at this stage of things been debated for decades.
It has long seemed to me quite logical that it should be in decline.
One reason is that fan fiction thrives on fans being able to sink their teeth into an exciting world--and for many, many years now we have seen the media, instead of offering new worlds, serve up the same old thing again and again, to diminishing returns. (Consider how at FanFiction.net Harry Potter is far and away the biggest fandom. When was the last time we had a really new thing become a hit on that scale?)
There has also been the extreme fragmentation of pop culture--which means that fewer and fewer people are all likely to be looking at any one thing at the same time, about which only a very limited percentage is likely to be sufficiently moved to write stories (which, again, works against any Harry Potter-like phenomenon ever occurring), with all that means for the proportions the fandom is likely to achieve.
Let us also acknowledge that the base of fan fiction has always been the young--and that almost two decades into the age of the smart phone the young are probably less likely to read and write recreationally than their predecessors, with all that implies for their writing fan fiction. (It probably matters that the Internet was just taking off when Harry Potter arrived, that through many of the early years of the fandom when people did experience the Internet it was through a desktop--which left more time for books, for example, as compared with the life of someone young enough to not be able to remember not having had a smart phone in their hand.)
Apart from affecting the inclination to write fan fiction, all this also affects the inclination to read it--translating to the lack of an audience for those who do get something out there, which is no encouragement to keep writing and sharing such stories. Indeed, considering all this I find myself thinking of the reality that so many of those who write fan fiction are responding not to books, but to movies and TV shows. Even when employing the written word they have audiovisual media on their minds--and I suspect that for them a fan fiction story is a poor and distant second to what they would really like to produce, fan movies and shows of the kind only a few can make for lack of the financial and technical resources, which may well dampen their enthusiasm. In fact, it may well be that, just as the vlogger probably does their part in drawing attention away from the old-fashioned blog, the fan works that those who can produce them do generate are likely claiming the attention of the audience that would once have whiled away its time in the old fan fiction repositories.
It has long seemed to me quite logical that it should be in decline.
One reason is that fan fiction thrives on fans being able to sink their teeth into an exciting world--and for many, many years now we have seen the media, instead of offering new worlds, serve up the same old thing again and again, to diminishing returns. (Consider how at FanFiction.net Harry Potter is far and away the biggest fandom. When was the last time we had a really new thing become a hit on that scale?)
There has also been the extreme fragmentation of pop culture--which means that fewer and fewer people are all likely to be looking at any one thing at the same time, about which only a very limited percentage is likely to be sufficiently moved to write stories (which, again, works against any Harry Potter-like phenomenon ever occurring), with all that means for the proportions the fandom is likely to achieve.
Let us also acknowledge that the base of fan fiction has always been the young--and that almost two decades into the age of the smart phone the young are probably less likely to read and write recreationally than their predecessors, with all that implies for their writing fan fiction. (It probably matters that the Internet was just taking off when Harry Potter arrived, that through many of the early years of the fandom when people did experience the Internet it was through a desktop--which left more time for books, for example, as compared with the life of someone young enough to not be able to remember not having had a smart phone in their hand.)
Apart from affecting the inclination to write fan fiction, all this also affects the inclination to read it--translating to the lack of an audience for those who do get something out there, which is no encouragement to keep writing and sharing such stories. Indeed, considering all this I find myself thinking of the reality that so many of those who write fan fiction are responding not to books, but to movies and TV shows. Even when employing the written word they have audiovisual media on their minds--and I suspect that for them a fan fiction story is a poor and distant second to what they would really like to produce, fan movies and shows of the kind only a few can make for lack of the financial and technical resources, which may well dampen their enthusiasm. In fact, it may well be that, just as the vlogger probably does their part in drawing attention away from the old-fashioned blog, the fan works that those who can produce them do generate are likely claiming the attention of the audience that would once have whiled away its time in the old fan fiction repositories.
"Paying Your Dues"
Where the right to a position or some other such good is concerned people often speak of having "paid their dues."
One might take this to mean their having earned the position through evident preparations for that position's tasks and demonstrations of the relevant competences gained thereby--as with an artisan who completed apprenticeship and wander year, produced a "masterpiece," and thus has shown their worthiness to stand with the other masters in a guild, with all the rights (and responsibilities) pertaining to that.
However, the demonstration of actual merit is not what the phrase "paying one's dues" calls to mind. Rather it makes one think of membership in an exclusive social club--but they are, of course, not usually looking to get into a social club per se, or paying money to do it. However, that word "pay" still seems relevant, calling to mind how people used to buy offices, and why they were prepared to do so, namely to make money out of that office, commonly by taking bribes.
As in that case, those who speak of having "paid their dues" have let others exploit them in the past so that they can be in the privileged position where they get to exploit others later in their turn.
It is an essentially nasty concept--the kind of nastiness quite natural to the mediocre conformist mind that believes in "playing the game."
One might take this to mean their having earned the position through evident preparations for that position's tasks and demonstrations of the relevant competences gained thereby--as with an artisan who completed apprenticeship and wander year, produced a "masterpiece," and thus has shown their worthiness to stand with the other masters in a guild, with all the rights (and responsibilities) pertaining to that.
However, the demonstration of actual merit is not what the phrase "paying one's dues" calls to mind. Rather it makes one think of membership in an exclusive social club--but they are, of course, not usually looking to get into a social club per se, or paying money to do it. However, that word "pay" still seems relevant, calling to mind how people used to buy offices, and why they were prepared to do so, namely to make money out of that office, commonly by taking bribes.
As in that case, those who speak of having "paid their dues" have let others exploit them in the past so that they can be in the privileged position where they get to exploit others later in their turn.
It is an essentially nasty concept--the kind of nastiness quite natural to the mediocre conformist mind that believes in "playing the game."
When Should a Blogger Call it Quits?
As I have remarked in the past on this blog (and elsewhere), blogging seems to me an activity in decline as the way in which people use the Internet moves on--and arguably also as the Internet decays into a state we can hardly predict now. Those who have tried blogging, and not got the results they hoped for (for instance, with regard to building an audience online), have to know that the going is probably just going to get tougher as all of this continues.
Might it then be that the rational thing is to quit now?
I won't say that--or even pretend that I can even make figuring out the answer easy. But I do think that it is possible to at least suggest a starting point for figuring it out with this question: Does what I am doing here have intrinsic value to others or myself? In other words, does what you are putting out there deserve to be out there for its own sake, even if in the end it is possible that the world will not notice? Are you, for example, saying something that others need to hear even if they are not hearing it--because it is that important, and others are not saying it? Absent that, even if others do not hear it, do you find that it at least satisfies your need to speak--even if others do not seem to hear?
If a blog does that then I think one can justify continued plugging away even in the face of an indifferent world. If it does not, then it might be time to at least think about at least cutting back on the time and attention you put into your blog, if only for the sake of your own well-being.
Might it then be that the rational thing is to quit now?
I won't say that--or even pretend that I can even make figuring out the answer easy. But I do think that it is possible to at least suggest a starting point for figuring it out with this question: Does what I am doing here have intrinsic value to others or myself? In other words, does what you are putting out there deserve to be out there for its own sake, even if in the end it is possible that the world will not notice? Are you, for example, saying something that others need to hear even if they are not hearing it--because it is that important, and others are not saying it? Absent that, even if others do not hear it, do you find that it at least satisfies your need to speak--even if others do not seem to hear?
If a blog does that then I think one can justify continued plugging away even in the face of an indifferent world. If it does not, then it might be time to at least think about at least cutting back on the time and attention you put into your blog, if only for the sake of your own well-being.
Peer Review in the Age of Automated Scholarship
I have personally been on both sides of the peer review process, in more than one field. I thus know something of not just its virtues but its limitations and vulnerabilities firsthand. Altogether it seems to me rather a fragile thing, belonging within an earlier, slower-paced era in which the academic world was smaller and "clubbier." (Indeed, on more than one occasion reading my peer reviewer's comments I made guesses about who wrote the feedback--on one occasion having the guess confirmed as correct.)
In an era of chatbot-powered paper mills supplying a much more thoroughly global community of scholars living by "publish or perish" rules content to submit to the explosion of increasingly fee-charging journals that system seems too fragile to survive, as, indeed, absurdities break through its barriers to deluge us all in even worse nonsense than before. Much as elitists whine about the openness of the Internet (which I think a good thing on the whole, of which we unfortunately have had less these many years), the fact remains that even at its worst what we had on that open Internet was at least humans putting up content, rather than very incomplete artificial intelligences slapping words together; and those who put together an academic journal adhered to some minimum standard, especially because they expected subscribers, not authors, to pay for that journal's operation out of finite resources, which meant there was some filtration, far from perfect, but not wholly unhelpful, with all it means for even those journals where peer-review will still be effective (even their efforts tarnished).
I suspect the only real solution will mean effectively automating the examination of all this material--helping us weed out what is illegitimate--in step with the automation of its production. However, just as it seems that the effectual editing of content is a much higher-level skill than just churning stuff out, any such adaptation lies a long way away, leaving us making do as best we can with our old devices in the meantime.
In an era of chatbot-powered paper mills supplying a much more thoroughly global community of scholars living by "publish or perish" rules content to submit to the explosion of increasingly fee-charging journals that system seems too fragile to survive, as, indeed, absurdities break through its barriers to deluge us all in even worse nonsense than before. Much as elitists whine about the openness of the Internet (which I think a good thing on the whole, of which we unfortunately have had less these many years), the fact remains that even at its worst what we had on that open Internet was at least humans putting up content, rather than very incomplete artificial intelligences slapping words together; and those who put together an academic journal adhered to some minimum standard, especially because they expected subscribers, not authors, to pay for that journal's operation out of finite resources, which meant there was some filtration, far from perfect, but not wholly unhelpful, with all it means for even those journals where peer-review will still be effective (even their efforts tarnished).
I suspect the only real solution will mean effectively automating the examination of all this material--helping us weed out what is illegitimate--in step with the automation of its production. However, just as it seems that the effectual editing of content is a much higher-level skill than just churning stuff out, any such adaptation lies a long way away, leaving us making do as best we can with our old devices in the meantime.
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