Gatekeepers
There is a vexing preconception among traditionally-published authors, one that I’ve occasionally been guilty of too: the idea that there are leagues in writing, and that some authors belong here or there, not based on the quality of their output but according to how their books reach an audience. Because publishing the traditional way entails overcoming obstacles (agents, acquisition teams, editors, and so on)1, it is often assumed that a book published in this fashion is a priori better than a self-published one. If you look at Amazon KDP — that cesspit of badly-typeset atrocities dressed in covers put together with Microsoft Word — it is tempting to agree: self-publishing does stink of bad literature. But so does traditional publishing, and not always with nicer covers. If you don’t believe me take a look at any bestsellers list and marvel at the stultifying putrefaction of what you’ll find.
What this preconception reveals, more than the state of literature today is our addiction to gatekeepers. Gatekeeping may have sounded convincing when it at least pretended to be about the mythical creature known as Merit, but in 2023 any fool with time to start a literary prize, or with enough family support to work for a couple of years for peanuts at a publishing house, or with enough disposable income to launch a magazine can become a gatekeeper. I speak from experience, having edited a literary journal for ten years, getting to decide many times who gets published or not — I’m both proud and mortified to say I published many writers for the first time, many of whom went on to release books the traditional way. It was a small indie operation, and my power very limited, but how the hell did I end up making those calls? Who appointed me? No one — I just happened to have some spare cash and launched a magazine. In other words, I appointed myself and then some took me seriously and then things took a life of their own... In my defence, gatekeeping is always about self-appointment, whether we’re talking about an e-mag, one of the five big publishers, or a literary prize — gatekeepers see it as only natural to open or close the gate. And at least my moral compass started to work in the end and I escaped from this gatekeeping business hanging my head in shame.
Should it be a free for all then? Is all literary production the same? Not necessarily — this is where criticism has a role to play. Criticism, which unlike gatekeeping, is a collective discourse that is constantly being negotiated and rewritten. Brutally-honest criticism is a creative force that should be put to work more often these days of being nice (online) to all sort of shit. So, what I’m ranting about today isn’t critical red lines, but the snobbish idea that self-published books are necessarily lesser than those traditionally-published. And vice versa. Don’t forget the vice versa.
There’s no natural way to release a book
Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust; A Christmas Carrol, by Charles Dickens; Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen. Three very different books, three classics, the three of them self-published, for different reasons but self-published nevertheless2. You might like these books or not but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t agree that there are timeless, regardless of how they first reached an audience.
If you go further back in time you’ll find more and more self-published books, to the point that self-publishing before the appearance of traditional publishing houses was the norm, not an exception. This was especially so before the invention of the printing press, since books had to be copied by hand. Of course it isn’t a matter of reverting to copying books by hand in a damp monastery, or typesetting each character manually, or allowing only the well-off to release their work to their double-barrelled acquaintances. But we shouldn't naturalise any particular publishing mode either.
What I’m trying to hint at with my simplified overview of the history of publishing, is that it should be obvious that literary creation and the need to find readers precedes publishing as we know it today. The Industry with capital i — that incoherent conglomeration of commercial bodies lumped together by the need to make money out of books — excels at pushing the ahistorical mantra that there wouldn’t be literature without it — it’s in its interest to do so. The problem is that writers ended up believing this mantra, hoping that if they chant it loud enough they might break into the coveted industry. In literary terms this is very depressing, because in their bid to please this formless Moloch they often end up dumping faeces that resemble everyone else’s.
I’m more and more driven to think that if literature has anything interesting left to say this can’t be said inside the industry any more, but parallel to it and at a certain distance. And I say “parallel to it and at a certain distance” and not “outside of it” because one: I’m not a utopian or a new age liberal, and I understand there’s no outside of capital; and two: the industry and its many resources can be put to work for literary creation. Soon AI will take care of the chore of producing literary sameness, and — regardless of all the negative noise being made about AI right now — eventually the industry will fall in love with the pecuniary advantages of having ChatGPT pen bestsellers, instead of having to pay an actual novelist for the content3.
Luckily, literature exists elsewhere. Yes, it exists in books, bookshops, websites, classrooms, and review pages. But it also exists in the drive to fix something on a page and in the desire to read this — it exists as a form of communication. The question is how to make the seemingly abstract space that separates these existences tangible. And this is not a minor question, for this space is the actual battleground in the war between culture, as central aspect of human life, and the industry, as the economic assemblage that exploits culture, many times to the detriment of humans. Needless to say, the Industry with capital i is currently winning.
From a critical point of view, perhaps the first step in a counteroffensive against the total commodification of literary culture would be to stop attributing an a priori better quality to industrial commodities and start looking at literature in more open-minded ways. Another practical way in which criticism can stop bowing down to the industry is by refusing to react live to the industry’s output. Books have an extremely short life cycle these days, and critics are expected to react to them as they come hot out of the conveyor belt. Why let the industry dictate the pace and objects of criticism? Promoting books is the marketing department’s job, not that of critics. The critic’s job is to engage critically with ideas4.
Ideas, thanks god, that exist in many places.
No one is born a writer and no writer is born alone
The vexing preconception with which I opened this piece is frequently paired with the objection that self-publishing, in its eschewal of gatekeeping, is a solitary activity that lacks the collective input that is many times part and parcel of releasing a book the traditional way. It is partly true that gatekeeping many times involves that input, but it isn’t a black and white affair either. Leaving aside that there are many traditionally-published authors who go through life with the impression that their ideas and writing are beyond editing, the objection presupposes that self-publishing has to be a solitary endeavour.
Creative control doesn’t need to be a synonym with creative solitude. And here, in my opinion, lie very interesting possibilities that aren’t being exploited thoroughly in current times: embracing self-publishing not as a way to release individual ideas to an audience but to corrode the whole idea of the Author with capital a. The Industry with capital i depends on the idea of the Author with capital a in order to peddle literary commodities — this doesn’t mean that we as writers or critics need to agree.
Thinking of literary creation as a collective effort is counterintuitive in our age of identitarian fragmentation. Our first reaction when facing the creative act in 2023 is to look inwards and see what in our/selves is open for commodification — uniqueness becomes a unique selling point. But literature doesn’t happen in isolated existential vacuī. And perhaps the time has come to naturalise looking outwards in order to join others when it comes to cultural creation. Who’s said that books need to be written by a single person? This isn’t anything new — think of any avant-garde — but it’s something we seem to have forgotten.
From a practical point of view this is as simple as coming together with other likeminded creative individuals to produce non-industrial books. To re-embrace the DYI impetus of our adolescence, only that instead of starting a punk band we’ll start a writing milieu. Let me be as prosaic as possible in describing what I mean by this: anyone who’s been long enough in this writing gig will know other people with different abilities; A will be a good writer to consider as co-conspirator, B will have access to typesetting software, C will be an experienced editor, D a good proofreader, E can design a good cover, and so on; personnel could shift according to the project, with members of the milieu helping one other achieve their creative goals. Nowadays books can be released as print on demand with little investment, through many platforms — you just need to have enough dosh to pay for an ISBN number, if you even care about this formality. But what about selling the books, you may ask; how could you possibly match the selling power of traditional publishing? Well, at least when it comes to indie publishing, you won’t have to work too hard to match the selling power of most publishers. I don’t know, since social media is useless right now, organise more reading events, or just loud parties and sod the reading, and just sell your books. Organise, that is, a community. You might get more from it than just some hollow fame.
I’m not rediscovering powder or telling you anything too radical. I’m just inviting you to stop feeling alone and powerless as a writer facing an impenetrable and faceless industry. This is just an invitation to start thinking outside of the box. You don’t even need to close the door to traditional publishing — just don’t feel it’s the only option. In 2023, there might not be an outside from capital but there have never been more crevices and nooks in which to hide and create.
Maybe I’m over-optimistic here. OK, fair enough. But if optimism is a way of countering the stasis of these shitty times, then I’m willing to wear those rose-tinted glasses5.
The notion of cultural capital, once more, is very useful here.
Proust hadn’t had luck sending his book out, so he paid for its publication with the publishing house he was working for. Dickens paid for A Christmas Carol to see the light, disappointed with his publisher’s lack of interest in the manuscript. Austen paid publisher Thomas Egerton to bring out her now classic novel, after receiving many rejections.
If you have been reading this newsletter you’ll be aware I’m not necessarily against AI. The debate about the future of AI — as with all previous innovations with the potential to change lives — should focus on who has access to the technology and who owns the means of production, more than on the existence of the technology itself. Otherwise let’s go back to lighting our rooms with candles and dying of a cold.
As always, I’m talking about indie criticism. Critics working in traditional media are indeed tasked with selling books.
I apologise for the Trumpian pun of this post’s title and its cover image. But I need to hijack your waning attention somehow. Also, this morning I woke up with the news Argentineans have elected their own mini-Trump. So I laugh about it all to avoid crying about anything in particular, much like the nervous person who tells a joke during a wake.
Saw an article about a writer who couldn't get a book published. He set up his own publisher, used a top printer with reputation, so as the bookshops would stock the book. Apparently, the book did well. If I had money, I'd set up a publisher to put out short novels. Books of 30-60K words. Not as a solid rule, if something of 20K or 760K words was pukka, I'd take it on, but as a gap in the market kind of output. And I'd look at novels of unusual writing n'all. Not necessarily the hero journey, the 3 act, or whatever. But I ain't got no money, so I can't.
Thanks for this, Fernando. It's a liberating take.