The act of writing is awesome. The business of writing is, nnnnggghyeah, less so. Sometimes this thing we do seems like frolicking nude across a minefield while some shady assailant fires paintballs at your crotchparts. It’s hard to know which way to step. One wrong move and you’ve given some scam-artist all your copyrights or granted some publisher the right to tattoo its logo above your father’s ass-crack. We inkslingers have to stay frosty lest we get skuh-rewed.
Now, let’s be clear — I’m no expert on any of this stuff, and so I will defer right now, ahead of the post, to experts like Writers Beware (site and blog) or authors who are also pub-law experts like Susan Spann. My goal here is to wink and nod toward potential landmines so you can investigate them on your own sweet penmonkey time. Shall we begin?
1. Misinformation
The Internet is awesome because it’s all like HOLY CRAP ALL THE INFORMATION EVER, but it’s also less than awesome because it’s all also like HEY WHOA CHECK OUT THIS MOUNT FUJI-SIZED PILE OF HORSESHIT. Here on the Woven World Web, truth and bullshit are given equal time to parade around in their 1s and 0s; what that means for the writer is that we will encounter a mix of Genuine Information, Anecdotal Evidence (aka “Artisanal Data”), and Bold-Faced Deception. You’ll hear things about publishing or self-publishing or agents or contracts that fall into one of those categories but they all pretend to be in the category of Genuine Information even when they’re not. Always ask: “Is this true?” Then use your digital detective skills (and question-asking skills) to suss out the reality. (Please see yesterday’s post on the subject of dispelling misinformation. Pay particular attention to the comments.)
2. Self-Publishing Scams
Self-publishing is a great way for an author to assert control and take risks not supported by the more traditional (and often risk-averse) system. But outside true self-publishing you’ll find those interested in preying off writers who are bitter over rejection or who want it quick-and-easy, and so what forms is a scammy underlayer of scum-grease comprising assholes who want to take advantage of the potential self-publisher. So-called “vanity presses” will basically make you pay out the ass for a series of services (POD, marketing, whatever) that are designed to dip into your pockets and fill theirs while never replenishing what you lost. (Check out Writer Beware on Self-Pub and POD.) Oh, and some mainstream publishers are now launching their own “self-publishing” endeavors that sound suspiciously like vanity presses.
3. Get-Rich-Quick Schemes
The general consensus over an author’s potential finances seems to either be a) you’re going to be a broke-ass cubicle-monkey churning out novels for the monetary equivalent of Circus Peanuts (the candy, not the actual carnival legumes) or b) you’ll be the literary love-child of Stephen King and J.K. Rowling stuffing your library shelves with hundred-dollar-bills instead of books. The truth (as ever) is in the middle: you can do pretty nicely as an author. But those two polar opposites (shit-ass poor and holy-fuck rich) foster an environment of get-rich-quick schemes aimed at the writerly type. Here’s the key: when anybody guarantees that if you do X, Y, and Z then you can make phat bank too, get worried and do your research. Basically, if it sounds too good to be true? Mmmyeah, it probably is.
4. The Wrong Agent
The agent-author relationship is, at risk of belaboring the obvious, a relationship. It has to work as more than just a client-provider give-and-take — the agent has to be aware of your goals and work for you rather than for the industry at large. Thing is, authors taking that first icy plunge into the inky pools of publishing feel like they’d be blessed to get any agent at all, so they treat it the way a starving dog treats any piece of shit treat thrown on the floor. As a writer, you have power. This relationship isn’t meant to be parasitic. It’s symbiotic. Everybody wins or nobody does. Choosing the wrong agent could hurt your career more than it might help it.
5. Slopsucking Motherfucking Con Artist Agents
You can get the wrong agent, or you can get the AWOOGA AWOOGA WRONG AGENT — meaning, an agent who is basically going to milk you of your cash and your hope and, I dunno, run off to Barbados with some underage cabana boy. An untrustworthy agent will offer you constricting contracts, will demand money up front, will sell you additional “services” (editing! marketing! prostate massage!), and will rob you of your time and effort and good will toward men. Keep an eye on the Writer Beware Thumbs-Down Agency List.
6. No Agent At All
I hear this all the time: “The agent’s job is to get you a publishing deal, so if you already have a deal, you don’t need an agent.” An agent — or, more to the point, a good and qualified agent — does a whole lot more than that. Trust me from my experience: your agent will go well-beyond the offer and into the realm of negotiation. If you don’t want an agent, then you damn well better get a copyright or IP lawyer, because you’re going to get a contract from the publisher that at best will skim a little cream off your coffee for themselves and at worst will ensure that you can’t take a piss without them suing you because it counts as “competing content.”
7. Anybody Who Asks For Your Money
The saying is that money should flow to the author, not from her, and that’s still true — for the most part. Generally speaking, no publisher or agent or editor or producer should be asking for your money, and if they are, you gotta do your due diligence and sniff for the farty egg-stink of fraud. The exception to this is, of course, freelance services you might use on your own (editing, cover art, etc), but even there it’s on you to make sure you’re getting what you pay for.
8. Anybody Without A Proven Track Record
More to the point, be wary of hiring or forming a business relationship with anybody who has no proven track record. Agents, editors, publishers, book designers, web-coders, porn-farmers, whiskey-distillers: they’ll all have a stable of authors they can point to and say, “I provided a service and these fine people will act as references.” Seek out proven work. Don’t get into bed — figuratively speaking — with folks you don’t trust. Don’t get into actual bed with them, either, because that’s how you get chlamydia. Seriously, the publishing industry is full of the stuff.
9. Contest Scams
OH MY GOD WHAT A COOL CONTEST I CAN WIN A HUNDRED BUCKS FROM MY WRITING ALL I HAVE TO DO IS PAY A FIFTY DOLLAR ENTRY FEE AND THEN TURN IN MY WORK AND SIGN THIS CONTRACT THAT GIVES THEM RIGHTS TO PUBLISH MY WORK ANYWHERE AT ANY TIME FOREVER AND EVER AND MAN THIS IS MY TICKET TO LITERARY FAME oh yeah, no it isn’t, it’s a scammy fuck-you-flavored contest. (Check out Writer Beware on Contests and Awards.)
10. Small Presses
Let’s be clear, this is not an indictment against all small presses. I like small presses. In this Age of the Cyborg Intertubes they can do a lot of the same things that a larger publisher can do but respond more quickly to change because their boots are not stuck in the mud of tradition. On the other hand, small presses can also pop up out of nowhere, created and manned by people who have literally no fucking idea what they’re doing, but they can talk a good game and sign some authors and then completely bork their books or even careers. As always: do research. Be wary. Sniff for bullshit. Hire a lawyer or an agent. Get defended against chicanery and legerdemain. (Behold: Writer Beware on Small Presses.)
11. Anything In Perpetuity
Forever is bad news in intellectual property. Damn, is forever good in anything? Would you buy a house that you had to own forever? Marriage is “forever” in theory, but legally, not so much. In publishing, forever ain’t so hot. You don’t want to give anybody rights to publish your work forever. You don’t want to staple-gun your mouth to the ass of any publisher, agent, or distribution entity. Any language that forces you into a lifetime-and-beyond relationship is there to hurt you and help someone else. Fuck it. Negotiate an escape.
12. Really Vague Language
You may recall that time that one publicity agency faked testimonials in the name of several authors including Myke Cole, Maureen Johnson and, ohhh, some dude named Chuck Wendig. Despite that little legal oopsie, there existed other clues that the Albee Agency just wasn’t on the up-and-up. For instance, evidence of their publicity efforts always came in vague data-bites: “We just got an author onto television to promote her book!” OH NO WAY. Hey, what author? What channel? What time? I’m sorry, no details available? Hey, could you turn up the ambiguity a little? The data-bite might as well have said: “WE JUST DID A THING FOR AN AUTHOR WHO WROTE THAT OTHER THING WE RULE HIRE US FOR OUR UNCERTAIN GENERIC SERVICES.”
13. Horseshit Publicity Services
Honestly, I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard of a publicity service really doing great things for authors, but I’m sure you’ll find one out there somewhere. Just the same, plenty exist who will take your money and book you on some radio show that has a devoted audience of 14 “model airplane enthusiasts” who don’t give a marmot’s mammary gland about your novel. (And now I’ll go ahead and point to Writer Beware on the various writer services available.)
14. Fake-Ass Reviews By Fake-Ass Reviewers
Fake reviews of books exist. Fake reviews of authors exist. Fake reviews of everything exist (see above, with the “conjured out of the ether” testimonials of the Albee Agency). Don’t pay for fake reviews. Don’t be fooled by them. Don’t eat yellow snow. Don’t order fish on Mondays. Etc, etc.
15. Bullshit Social Media Services
Social media ain’t that goddamn hard, people. You know how, like, you’re a person who walks around and talks to people at the mall, or at work, or at the dinner table? And how it doesn’t behoove you to be a total fucking asshole there? Do the same thing online. There! Ta-da! I just saved you from hiring a social media guru who will take your money in order to infuse your social media presence with the rank snot-curdling odor of sour douchebaggery (“brand!” “platform!” “Klout score!”). Also: piss on anybody who wants to take your money to give you 10,000 new “followers” in the blink of an eye. Five hundred awesome followers are better than 10,000 non-followers carved out of the quivering meat-gelatin that is digital spam. Now, if they’re offering you 10,000 artificially-intelligent hunter-killer robots, hey, hook me up.
16. Anybody Who Gets Paid But Won’t Pay You
It’s really pretty simple: your goal is not only to be published but also to get paid doing it. (Well, okay, maybe you personally don’t give a shit, but I’m talking to the professional or hope-to-be-professional writers out there, and professional is a Latin word that means “Pay Me, Motherfucker.”) So, any publishing endeavor that publishes your work and in turn gets paid means some of that money should trickle down to you. Preferably a not-insignificant share of it because, drum roll please, without the creative content put forth by writers, the publisher has not one fiddly fucking thing to publish. In the business of publishing, creators are far more essential than publishers. A company who publishes squiggly margin doodles of ejaculating dicks still needs someone to scribble the jizzy dongs. If they get paid, you get paid.
17. Work For Exposure
Follow-up to that: exposure is not a measurable resource. If someone asks you to write for exposure, ask them how much exposure. Like, have them measure it. “Will it be ten picameters of exposure? I usually ask at least seven nanoliters’ worth.” If they can prove it, fuck yeah, great. But exposure is a hard thing to prove. Let me utter my refrain yet again: “Writers, like hikers, can die from exposure.” And, my second refrain, brought to bear once more with the Amanda Fucking Palmer TED Talk: “If you’re going to be exposed, expose yourself.”
18. Unqualified Editors
Editors are the unsung heroes of the publishing industry. They can shine dirty gold to a burnished gleam and can even help an author spin dross into pearlescent threads of unicorn colostrum. Just the same, you never want to hire an editor without getting some sense of their qualifications. Get some testimonials. Talk to their other clients. Follow up.
19. Anybody Trying To Pressure You Into Anything
Applying pressure is a famous bullying tactic that’s also a sign to duck and cover. Fake time constraints or disappearing opportunities or any attempt to force you to make a decision out of fear is always a steaming sauce-pot of rat urine. The application of pressure tells an author that you have something they want and they’re afraid they cannot get it. Kick them to the curb and find a better, healthier partner who won’t try to stick a gun up your keister.
20. The Loss Of Subsidiary Rights
The money in publishing isn’t just from the advance — it’s from selling a bunch of sub-rights like foreign (world translation), audio, film, radio, comic books, games, whatever. Some publishers will try to scoop those up, but you need to keep those for yourself. Is your publisher really able to handle all that, and do you really want them to? Again: the power of a good agent is made clear, because they get paid when you get paid, which gives them an incentive to drum up opportunity for you and your work in shiny new spaces.
21. Scary Non-Compete Clauses
My opinion is, any non-compete clause in a contract is probably a bad one. First, it makes little sense for an author to compete against himself. Second, the nature of that non-compete can be interpreted a little too liberally on the page: “You wrote a middle-grade novel about a heroic penguin who fights off evil walruses and now you’re publishing an erotic spy novel who fights psychic KGB agents and we regret to inform you that both penguins and spies appear to wear tuxedos and so we feel that these novels compete against one another and thus we are going to have you assassinated. Please stand by and hold still so the sniper bullet can compete with your brainpan.” POOP NOISE TO THAT. Competition is what keeps this cranky capitalist machine churning properly and its loss is dangerous for authors and publishers.
22. Anything In That Makes You Feel Uncomfortable
Imagine this: Dude drives up in a van. He opens the door (which is painted with a mural of a wizard firing rainbow magic from his fingertips whose colorful acid beams are skinning a bat-winged nightmare pegasus). This sweaty, panting dude offers you candy. Already you’re like, “Yeah, shit, I love me some fuckin’ candy, but something about this gentleman seems mighty sketchy.” Your instinct will serve you will in this, and it will serve you well in publishing. Anytime you see something in a contract or in a company’s promise that sounds off-kilter and it tickles your amygdala enough to pump you full of paranoia juice, do some digging.
23. Work Without Contracts
Don’t work without a contract. It’s like jumping out of a plane naked, with no parachute, covered in weasels who are trained to invade warm, moist cavities. A strong, zero-fuckery contract can save you just as it can save the person who wrote the contract in the first place.
24. Disinformation (AKA Agendas)
No one aspect of publishing is perfect. Nor is there a single way to write your book and get it out into the world. Anybody who espouses a Monotheistic (ONE TRUE WAY) approach to this whole gig is a person with an agenda, and anybody with an agenda is spouting propaganda, and propaganda is nothing but disinformation designed to support said agenda. Misinformation is one thing — it just means people got it wrong. Disinformation is someone willfully smearing their own feces into your eyes and ears so you don’t find truth.
25. A Lack of Education On Your Part
Finding the truth and vetting information and making the right choices is all on you. No agent is perfect. No publisher is untarnished. No self-publishing prospect is an Easter basket of puppies and kittens. You must get educated. You must stand vigilant against the rampant heinous fuckery out there. Don’t trust me. Don’t place all your trust in the hands of anyone. Ask questions. Seek information. Look for the pearls of truth in the oyster-spooge of opinion. Be smart. Protect yourself. You are your own best defender against all the nonsense.
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teemtwo says:
Love it Chuck! #18 is especially important to me. There are a lot of predator editors out there & even more “editors” who don’t know what they are doing & are unqualified. What I have learned is that real, qualified editors w/clientele do not seek out & beg writers to buy their services, as I see all the time throughout social media. Prospective clients come to them instead. Great list, sharing!
March 5, 2013 — 5:05 AM
Harry Markov says:
Is there anything that we can feel moderately relaxed about? I’m perplexed at the high levels of disinformation I have encountered in the industry. Back when I wanted to become an author and get published and such, I was 17 or so and just followed author blogs, UF author blogs predominantly – like Rachel Vincent (first author I ever followed and interacted with) and widened my reading. The women in the genre love sharing their personal experiences and have painted a very consistent and non-threatening picture of what publishing is today. Nerve-wrecking for sure with the rejection and the waiting, but also very true.
At that time, I thought that unknown authors should start with a small press and even though it didn’t feel right to me at the time, I published stories through a small press, which thankfully went under and the things got buried under. I got burned and now I don’t rush into things.
NEVER RUSH INTO THINGS, people. NEVER!
March 5, 2013 — 6:14 AM
Troy L says:
In the world of now-now-now! it’s easy to fall into the rush trap. If it’s worth it, it won’t happen instantly.
March 5, 2013 — 6:25 PM
Harry Markov says:
My thoughts exactly. Writing is all about the long term.
March 6, 2013 — 10:44 AM
deborahblake1 says:
All of this–YES. And especially yes on needing an agent or a pubishing-savvy lawyer. I sold my first 5 nonfiction books on my own before signing with my agent (primarily for fiction, but she also handles the NF too). I am pretty smart. I had good advice from my father, who has sold multiple nonfiction books in his field (and got really screwed by his publisher on book three, because they tied the sales of all three books together to factor into how his royalties were paid). So I was pretty sure I’d done well with the contract on my own. Until my agent did the contract for NF book #6 and I saw the things she snagged and said “no way Jose” to. I’m pretty sure she earned her 15% right then.
March 5, 2013 — 6:53 AM
mark matthews says:
Thanks again for another great ’25’er. There are more preditors in the publishing world than on Discovery Channel’s Shark week. The latest is a pitch agency that will query multiple sources for you. I signed a contract with a small publisher, who then stopped talking to us. Yep, my signed contract was in their office and my novel was on their ‘coming soon’ list for years, before they finally went out of business, and I became a happy self-publisher. I’ve also fallen prey to a bad editor and formatter after taking the lowest bidder. But through this battle, I’ve gained some nice scars.
March 5, 2013 — 7:16 AM
Trystan Vikar says:
I once encountered a man who was falling for one of those scummy agent types. He met her at church, had mentioned that he’s writing a novel and she instantly offered to rep him upon hearing him describe the plot alone. She told him she was once a big publisher editor, though he didn’t know what publisher she worked for, and she had lots of contacts from that work to get his book published. But that was only going to happen once he paid her a couple grand for book editing and rewriting services. I tried to tell him that she’s obviously a scam artist but he kept publicly singer her praises even though she hadn’t done anything for him and just kept asking for more money. His response to anyone’s criticism was that she couldn’t be a crook because he met her in church and Christians don’t scam people. Last I heard about him he was selling a bunch of personal belongings to scrape up more money for her.
March 5, 2013 — 8:22 AM
Bunmi says:
This is so right on. The right agent makes all the difference in the world. All. of. the. difference. And don’t think you need a “big name” one. A good recommendation can mean far more.
March 5, 2013 — 9:24 AM
CRatliff says:
I am so glad I subscribed to your blog!
March 5, 2013 — 9:38 AM
Molly Dugger Brennan says:
This is truly useful, complete with links to more info, since it’s the beginning of the year and we’ve all made our “this will be the year” resolutions and oh-my-god-it’s-already-March panic is setting in. I do not have a tattoo, but my first may be, “Professional is a Latin word that means ‘Pay Me, Motherfucker.”
March 5, 2013 — 10:07 AM
teemtwo says:
@ Trystan Vikar – What’s your friend’s name? Is he hot? lol j/k 🙂
March 5, 2013 — 10:14 AM
CBame13 says:
Hilarious and informative. definitely going to have to keep all of this in mind moving forward. You overloaded my little brain a bit so I’ll be off to stare into space for a little as I shut down for an hour or so
March 5, 2013 — 10:22 AM
marlarosebrady says:
Thank you for this undeniable truth, Chuck!!!! <3 I know I am just a lowly penmonkey, but I love your writing style. If you ever need anything, let me know!! (PS: I write awesome book reviews:
http://www.cactusheartpress.com/book-reviewrecapture-by-erica-olsen/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CactusHeartPress+%28Cactus+Heart+Press%29)
March 5, 2013 — 10:43 AM
Casz Brewster says:
Just saw a friend in the music business get screwed by #16.
It’s a shark eat shark world out there. Make sure your boat is full of good intel.
Thanks, Chuck.
March 5, 2013 — 10:49 AM
LisaAnn says:
I recently subscribed by email to your posts, and I just have to say that they absolutely make my day. So much good information combined with so much snark and magnificence. Well done, sir.
March 5, 2013 — 12:33 PM
Kate Kobriger says:
I love this article! So funny, but also informative. I will be sure to check out your other posts. Thanks, Chuck!
March 5, 2013 — 1:38 PM
Aubyanne Meletio Poulter says:
Much as I agree on the magic wielded by editors – whether you’re going for straight-up line-editing, or more hardcore rewriting – it seems they’re really two different camps. It gets to a point where I’m not editing anymore: I’ve crossed-over into full-on script-doctoring. And I’m hated for it. De-spised. Not shamelessly flying my colours here or anything, but it really, really drives me a little insane.
Take westerns, for example. Or historical romance. Don’t know the first damned thing. But if a writer of such comes to me and wants assistance because of the strengths I do have, then the LAST thing I need them doing is jumping down my throat – or worse, saying NOTHING AT ALL, and going into passive-aggressive mode – because they DO like what I’ve done. And they HATE me because THEY didn’t do it themselves! What! Is! Up! With! That?
So, script-docs are getting a little scared, I think. We still market ourselves as editors, but most of the work we get is not from those seeking a little polish. No, no. It’s turd-perfuming. Sculpting. And painting. Ta-da! You’d never know it was such a steaming pile of shit. Then there’s the silent nagging of why we’re doctoring another’s work … rather than pouring that effort into our own. (Read: $$).
But is the dough even worth it if all you get is harangued – or made persona non grata – for doing your job WELL?
I’m not saying it is in the least, but it may be why the market seems flooded with preditors right now. The climate out here is just … blegh … at the moment.
Great article, by the way. I love to be infotained, and you do it so well, Chuck.
March 5, 2013 — 2:11 PM
M. Chapman says:
@Aubyanne
I honestly don’t see why any competitant author would ask an editor for anything more than a polish. If you’re unwilling to do the work and put forth effort, you have no place in the competitant business of writing books. This ain’t an easy job, you can’t just pay someone and you’ll magically become the next J.K. Rowling.
March 5, 2013 — 5:59 PM
Shiloh Walker/J.C Daniels says:
I consider myself a competent writer. And I ask for my editors to tear my work apart if need be. Every editor I’ve worked with has taken the stories I turn in and made them better. That’s what a good editor does… they find the weak spots that writers often can’t see because after you’ve spent weeks or months living and breathing that story, those weak spots can easily become invisible to you. That’s more than polishing, IMO.
March 5, 2013 — 6:30 PM
Shiloh Walker/J.C Daniels says:
This…
So very much this. I cannot count all the digital publishers I’ve seen come and go, die in a fiery crash, often screwing writers in the process.
Everybody has to start somewhere, and that includes small presses, but you learn to spot, even from the beginning, the signs of the ones that are never going to make it off the ground.
March 5, 2013 — 6:32 PM
chriswhitewrites says:
I have (well, had, I’ll explain in a sec) a really awesome editor if anyone needs professional editing done. Their website is a bit 90s and they go a bit overboard on the whole “we are cheap!” angle, but by fuck was the editing he did brilliant. Got my piece back to me in a couple of days, went into heaps of detail, the works. I say had because after I sent him my second short he replied with “Here’s your story, and the editing, but if you follow my advice from these two pieces you won’t need my services anymore. Send me a copy of your novel when it’s done and I’ll edit that…” Talked himself out of getting more business? Awesome. I’ll definitely send him my manuscript when it’s done. You can find him here: http://www.oz-edit-proofreading.com Highly recommended.
March 5, 2013 — 6:43 PM
shannon says:
Mr/Ms? Wendig. I have now noticed it a few times You use she/her A LOT when you mention an author/writing issues. The usage of the feminine rather than the masculine (being you are supposed to be a guy, right?) is unusual. Most men when referring to an unnamed being will usually refer to it/he and female writers refer to the same being as an it/she.
I’ve noticed it in several of your postings. Chuck are you actually a Charlotte?
Anyways love your posts. I have an even greater respect for you writers now seeing some of the issues you all have to deal with.
I am NOT a writer. I am an avid READER (my son says I don’t read books I devour them) Any advice out there for Readers that would like to be beta readers or reviewers.
March 6, 2013 — 9:09 AM
terribleminds says:
It’s a conscious effort to be sure I’m sometimes talking about authors who aren’t me. Inclusive and all that. I’ll sometimes mix the pronouns, too.
— c.
March 6, 2013 — 9:26 AM
Harry Markov says:
Don’t lie! We all know that you are an evil Hivemind entity consisting of half the planet’s artists and druggies (which councidentally overlap).
March 6, 2013 — 10:46 AM
Aubyanne Meletio Poulter says:
Wow. That’s fascinating. Chuck’s absolutely of the male persuasion, (or he’s pulling a serious fast one on the world at large) and I’m not sure I agree with the absolute nature of your statement. Being a chick writer, I’m just as likely to go with a non-gender-oriented treatment – or the more common ‘he’. Why? That’s how I was taught in school – before everything was oh-so-PC.
So what you may be seeing, Shannon, is a result of generational differences – rather than gender-based.
March 6, 2013 — 9:33 AM
shannon says:
Like I said I read A LOT. From articles, short stories, novellas, novels…. it just seems to be the norm especially in articles that the author will usually (remember rules and exceptions) use a pronoun for their own gender. This is excusing car/boat pronouns as usually she (societal norm) or gender biased (knit/cook/sewing/laundry) topics.
Thank You Chuck for clarifying that, I appreciate it.
March 6, 2013 — 10:24 AM
Kameron Hurley says:
I think you only notice the “she” pronoun because so few people make this acknowledgement (Nate Silver mixes up pronouns in his book, The Signal and The Noise as well; and it’s better for it). If you run an actual count on pronoun use, $1 says you’ll still see “he” used more than 50% of the time, even though women make up 51% of humans. Studies show that people start to think that women are “dominating” a group when they make up just 40% of attendees.
FWIW I had a really tough time reading Terrible Minds before Chuck started making this switch (I noticed it a while ago). Like most folks, I was also tricked into believing that “he” included everyone when I was growing up. But experience told me that, in fact, it doesn’t. So I’ve gotten more annoyed these days when folks make default assumptions about their audiences.
About 50% of my readers are dudes. I think about that a lot. I’d expect guys to think about the fact that 20-40-60% of their audiences are women, too, and adjust if necessary. This is just being a good writer.
March 6, 2013 — 10:45 AM
terribleminds says:
To be fair, I’ve always tried to include she as a pronoun — not universally, but as a mix. It was something hammered into me in my game-writing days at White Wolf, who were very diligent about authors using both.
— c.
March 6, 2013 — 11:50 AM
Aubyanne Meletio Poulter says:
Ye-e-e-es. Okay, that clicks. Oh, WoD.
Long ago, in a land far, far away, I wrote a novel for them; the stink of ‘Underworld’ was still in the air, and suddenly the ‘sorry, no specs’ sign was hung on the door, and nobody could hear my cries of, ‘but, you guys, somebody asked me to do this! Hello? Guys? … Guys?’ And yet, I still like ’em. Hey, talent is talent, and there was some brilliant stuff to come out of that braintrust.
I digress. A lot.
It’s a bit like writing serious psych in the digital age. The new norm is ‘have Amazon, who cares if it’s usually only available to grad students’. Since there’ve been enough successful campaigns of ‘I am more than my [disorder],’ it’s now a big faux pas to write, for example, ‘the borderline,’ or ‘the schizophrenic’, and we’re all required instead to tack on an extra few words per sentence with a healthy dose of ‘s/he’ or ‘he / she’, or ‘she or he’ – depending upon your flavour.
I actually got so sick of this, I stopped writing in that arena for awhile. After all the PC-mongering, my thought went the way of the dodo. It may’ve been brilliant, but thanks to rewiring my brain to include both genders in a single sentence – I’ll never know what the hell it was.
If there’s anything I hate with a passion as a writer, it’s something slowing down my creative process. That conductor works a LOT of hours, is paid shit, and has incurable ADD. I’m lucky that train EVER stays on the track, know what I’m sayin’ ?
March 6, 2013 — 12:52 PM
Kameron Hurley says:
Innnnteresting. Yeah, when I first started reading occasional posts here, it felt very guy-pronoun-heavy. Later on, not so much. May have just been the particular posts I first coasted in here on.
March 6, 2013 — 6:46 PM
darleneaubol says:
OMG #9… Contest Scams. I entered one, and it was obvious that the person tasked to critique my entry decided to pass the job to their third grader. The critique was printed in pencil with many cross outs and misspelled words. The little jerk kept whining, “These people are old! No one cares about old people.” The characters were actually fortyish.
O/T, but avoid raffles. If the prize is bigger than a quilt, rest assured the raffle organizers already know who’s going to win it.
aka Darlene Underdahl
http://www.VermillionRoadPress.com
March 6, 2013 — 2:08 PM
Elizabeth Lang says:
Love this. Some hard-hitting words that all writers should read.
March 8, 2013 — 5:37 PM
Chris Brady says:
So, it’s 25 ways of saying “DO SOME EFFIN’ RESEARCH, YOU LAZY DOUCHEBAGS!” Nice.
March 10, 2013 — 11:56 PM
Tina says:
Do or die, shite or bust, who dares loses, the who-dunnits didn’t, whilst I came here, the same way I came last time I came here…no-one dared me, I did do, I shall do, will live to die another day…the same way I do…oh yes before I forget did you know that Ken Dodd’s Dads Dog Died Doing It Didn’t He…DayDoDatDoDontDayDogsDoDy…tattyhilariousx Love Today x
March 12, 2013 — 5:52 PM