In one of his series of essays on ‘Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing’, Dean Wesley Smith takes aim at what he calls the ‘myth’ that writers compete with one another. He pours scorn on this ‘myth’, and on all who believe it. A short but representative sample:
The myth is simply that writers compete.
Of course, this is so far wrong, it shouldn’t be even talked about, but alas it’s still out there and going strong. In fact, I recently made the mistake of wondering over onto the Kindle boards and wasted a bunch of hours before I came to my senses. By the time I was finished with those hours, I knew I had to talk about this, since new writer after new writer talked about how they had to compete with all the other writers to get their books read.
He then goes on to paint a wonderful Technicolor picture of a world where there is an unlimited demand for fiction, pie for you and me and pasture for all the sheep, and the sky’s the limit, baby. Now, I do not know what religion Mr. Smith adheres to, but I am a lifelong devotee of what Kipling calls the Gods of the Copybook Headings. And one of the Copybook Headings, which people like Mr. Smith seem never to have heard of, is this:
Trees do not grow up to the sky. [Read more…]
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