We know, we know. We should be nicer. We should also get up earlier and eat better. It’s all so difficult. But, in a world where far too many books are published, you can’t expect each one to receive the careful, thoughtful, undivided attention it surely deserves. Even if the world of book reviewers magically increased ten-fold, the law of averages and volume and probably other laws we don’t know about would dictate that not every book would get critical attention.
Yet, rather than accepting the industry for what it is (and we all complain about the industry in some manner), some feel it’s important to write a “Goodbye, Cruel World” speech:
“The literary world is a sort of club that lets some people in and some not,” he complained, “and for some reason I wasn’t let in. The way that they let you know you’re not going to be let in is they don’t review your book. Or they review it so slowly it dies at birth and the publishers don’t want to publish your books any more.”
1 response so far ↓
Bill Peschel // Oct 15, 2004 at 7:07 pm
I’m sure publishing four novels in 15 years had nothing to do with it. Ah, well, best of luck to him with his pilgrim’s progress into the land of screenwriting, where so much more attention and respect is paid to the written word.