Blah blah blah, Amazon-Hachette.

Amazon put out a new offer which was very kind to Hachette writers, so kind, in fact, that it was untenable because it would hurt Hachette in the end: roughly the equivalent of saying, “We will give every author a pony and a jet-ski if all the executives at Hachette line up on television and punch themselves in the face.”

The offer may very well be an earnest one by a company that loves authors. The offer may be a plea to get the hearts of the authors without doing anything about it, because Hachette was always, always, always going to reject that deal. (If I know you’re going to reject a deal up front, I can offer you the world, appearing grandly magnanimous in what is predictably an empty gesture. I might suggest that Amazon’s kindest and most realistic move would simply be to return Hachette books to their original status — pre-orderable and shipping quickly. This wouldn’t merely be kind, but also help stanch the flow of buyers who are realizing they can buy books from, y’know, other places, thus altering their purchasing patterns and — oh, hell, this isn’t why I’m here.)

Point is: I do not know the hearts and minds of these corporations.

And if we’ve learned anything from Hobby Lobby and certain petitions:

Corporations are people and we’d hate to hurt their feelings.

Ahem.

I’d offer, however, the notion that authors are actually the real people here that are worth caring about — and the rhetoric and framing of this author-versus-author is total uglypants. So, in this instance, when Amazon makes its deal and several Hachette authors come out and say, “That’s lovely, but actually, I quite like my publisher,” they are noted as suffering from ‘Stockholm Syndrome.’ Which is to say, they are being compared to actual hostages who have been made to sympathize with their captors. It’s nasty language, suggesting that they are, in effect, abuse victims who have grown to like the licking they’re taking.

Please, understand:

Some writers like their publishers.

I know, that’s weird, particularly if you’ve taken the position that Self-Pub Is True And Mighty and Traditional Publishing Is Exploitative And Cruel. But, here’s a revolutionary idea: maybe traditional-publishing isn’t universally exploitative. (It can be! Oh boy, it can be.) Maybe, just maybe, people have agents who have negotiated for them strong contracts that don’t fall prey to a lot of the perils we hear: they keep copyright, they get good advances, they negotiate stronger percentages and escalators, they are free of various harmful non-compete clauses. Maybe every publishing deal isn’t a whip-crack against one’s bare ass.

Not every publishing deal is the Prom at the end of Carrie.

Some authors feel they are getting value from their publishers.

Editorial. Marketing. Distribution.

Some authors feel that they cannot do these things on their own, or simply don’t want to.

That’s not Stockholm Syndrome. (A term that proves itself false the moment you take a long look at it — a captor is one who has forcibly detained you. Authors willingly sign contracts. They are complicit from the get-go. If you’re another writer using this term: you should be a better writer and cleave to more precise — and less inflammatory — language.)

Some authors really are in uneven — even exploitative — relationships with their publishers. It’s true. And if you’re earnest hope is to help show them the light, you don’t do that by calling them names like a schoolyard bully, or worse, suggesting that they are in some way mentally ill. You do it by consistently showing them the freedom you possess that they don’t. (Not money. Going on about how much money you’re making, while honest, has the look of a rich kid crumpling up dollar bills and pitching them at your head.) Just open the door and let them see the Glittery Unicorn Wonderland in which you frolic — you don’t then also have to go up to them and punch them in the face because they’re not dancing around the same candy cane maypole.

And, just the same, when an author with a publisher says they’re happy?

Leave it alone.

Wish them well!

Consider that they might be:

a) earnest

and

b) not actually held hostage.

They are not sycophants for liking their publisher. Just as you’re not a sycophant for thinking Amazon is pretty whoa-dang cool for doing what it’s done. (Curiously, Amazon, when acting as a publisher, offers deals comparable to those on the traditional side of things.)

So, y’know — maybe tone it down a little.

Maybe accept that people have different experiences.

Maybe they’re not bound to their captors because they… aren’t held captive.

And maybe, just maybe, stop using a term that implies mental illness or at the very least makes you sound like a bully. One’s choices as an author-publisher are plenty valid without others having to make the same choice as you. As I said over the weekend: this isn’t religion, and this isn’t war. You don’t score points (outside of invisible social points that you can’t spend and that make you look like a wanker) for “winning.” You do what you do.

You don’t proselytize by cutting everyone else off at the knees.

PLAY NICE TOGETHER

DON’T RUN WITH SCISSORS

YOU’RE ALL AUTHORS NOT BEARS AND GLADIATORS

DON’T BE JERKS

NOW HUG.

HUG, I SAY, HUG.

*stares*

I am always eager to get characters on the page quickly, without fuss, without muss, and doing something immediately. Not like, sitting around, flicking their genitals and staring at the Travertine tile reminiscing about that time the exposition exposited about that other exposition, but actually up and about. Active. Interacting with the world — exerting will — with agency.

This was my motivation for writing an earlier post about creating kick-ass characters.

So, I figured I’d share another one of the little things I keep in mind when flinging characters into the gnashing hell-jaws of my monster machine — er, I mean, “into the story.”

This is: MAC.

Motivation.

Action.

Consequence.

It goes like this:

Motivation

A character has a need. A want. A major motherfucking desire. This isn’t just a small-time yeah, maybe I want that. This is something they are motivated to achieve. Motivated as in: moved to act. This isn’t, “I want those new Zesty Bold Pecan Habanero Diapercrisp Doritos I keep hearing about.” This is: killing someone. Falling in love. Hiding a body. Proving one’s innocence. Blowing up a planet. This is something that would change the character’s life for good or bad. Not just revenge, but a specific revenge on a particular sonofabitch.

The character is driven.

Action

The character takes action. They are forced by their want/need/desire to do something. Not talk about it. Not just turd around and ruminate upon it. They are pushed to drastic, compelling, fascinating action. They violate their own status quo. They do something they wouldn’t normally do. They push. Take risks. This isn’t like, putting money in a parking meter. This is betting it all. This is putting every last bit of oneself on the line to enact a fantasy.

This doesn’t have to be just one action. It can be several — a whole chain of them. A plan. A scheme. A sequence. A plot in and of itself. (And if you’re catching a whiff that this is how plot is actually made — well, you ain’t wrong about that.)

Consequence

As they say, actions have consequences. Push down on one bubble, another pops up. That whole scientific principle of ‘every action has an equal and opposite reaction?’ True for stories. (Though I’d argue that you could, in the service of brevity, shorten it to every action has a reaction.)

Sure, it’s entirely possible that the consequence is: THE CHARACTER GETS WHAT HE WANTS AND THEN BUNNIES FROLIC AND EVERYTHING IS CHOCOLATE, THE END.

That sucks, though. You’re a storyteller. ‘Consequence’ is a word with great, well, consequence. It’s heavy. Foreboding and forbidding. It could just as easily be written as: and then shit happens because you accidentally fucked up in dogged pursuit of your desires. Character needs money for his baby girl’s heart transplant (motivation) so he robs a bank to get the money (action) and, well, c’mon, robbing banks usually comes with an unholy host of complications, right? Dead guard. Cops outside. No money in the vault. Hostages. Bill Murray in a clown costume.

Lots of potential conflicts and complications.

Both also great ‘c’ words that could sub-out for Consequence, should you so choose.

(Unlike “cock-waffle.” That gets us no closer to illumination, you cad.)

That Gets You Started

This is just a very, very simple way to get characters on the page — characters who want things and are willing to pursue their wants with diligence and fervor. Characters who are vulnerable to the truest, most vile antagonist of them all: you, the evil-ass storyteller.

(“And I would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling characters!” — every good storyteller ever, unmasked for the monster that they are.)

You may again notice that, from this simple-yet-vital springboard, sweet plot waters flow.

It’s true. Plot is easily and competently built from even a single character’s chain of motivation, action, and consequence. Want shit. Do shit. Fuck up shit. Boom, plot.

Except, here’s a secret.

Shhh, A Secret

Characters with divergent motivations and actions intersect.

And this intersection creates drama.

Darth Vader wants to bolster the Empire and hunt down that pesky princess who keeps stealing his plans and giving them to warbling droids. Luke Skywalker wants to get the fuck off his sandy cat-turd of a planet and with the help of one such warbling droid undertakes a mission to save the very princess that Darth Vader captured. When these two characters intersect, it creates drama — drama that is further fueled by the lie of Vader killing Luke’s father and the truth of Vader being Luke’s father. Each character is dicking up the other character’s plans.

Think about how multiple characters want different things.

Or sometimes want the same things, but demand different actions.

Or how the consequences of one character’s actions push and pull on the life of another character.

These three simple building blocks are bricks.

And sometimes characters fling these bricks at each other’s heads.

Sometimes on purpose.

Sometimes accidentally.

But drama is born as a result.

And in that conflict and that drama:

Plot.

*drops mic*

*mic crushes a pretty butterfly*

NOOOOOOOOO

#plot

Or a treehouse, or a cabin, or Neil Gaiman’s Magic Writing Gazebo.

Asked about this on The Social Medias yesterday, but now I’m asking you.

Anybody done this? Have an outdoor office? Some companies sell pre-fab buildings for just this purpose. Another option is to buy a shed and retrofit it to serve as an office — obviously I’d need electricity and some kind of HVAC and a rancor pit. Plus gladiator quarters.

So. Hit me with your best shot.

Dave presses his eye against the scope.

He sweats and squints. “Which one is which, again?”

Harry, behind him, squats down on a rock and peers through the binoculars. “The fat one — one that looks like a bean bag chair that grew pipecleaner legs and started tottering around, that’s Simon. The skinny one, tall and lean as a Virginia Slim cigarette, well, that’s Schuster.”

Deep breath. In, out. In, out.

Dave suddenly pulls away from the scope. “I dunno if I can do this, Harry.”

“Godsdamnit,” Harry says. He sucks in a snot, chews it a little, spits it against the rock — spat. “You picked a side, Dave. Time to tell them Big City Publishing types that they can’t tread on us.”

“Were they treading on us, though? I mean, seems like everybody’s allowed to do their own thing — it’s just, y’know, it’s just business –”

“Business?” Harry barks, incredulous. “Business? By Bezos’ balls, Dave. This ain’t just business. This here is idea-ology. They got ideas that ain’t our ideas and that’s a no-no. Can’t have folks running around willy-nilly thinking that they can just do different things. This is a war for the spirit. A war over freedom and independence. Now kiss that Kindle and take the shot, Dave.”

Dave nods. Grabs the Kindle dangling around his neck, gives it a kiss, then stoops back to the rifle. He blinks away stinging sweat.

Harry, in his ear: “Take the shot, Dave. Take the shot.”

Bang. The gun kicks like a scorpion-stung horse. The rifle report ripples across the valley — the sound of a bullet ripping the sky like a piece of paper moments before it unzippers Simon’s robot head, sending up a rain of sparks. Schuster warbles and screams and runs for cover. Even here they can hear its legs clanking.

“The other one’s running,” Dave says.

“That’s all right,” Harry answers. He claps Dave hard on the back. “We’ll get him later. For now, we gotta move down into the canyons. I hear there’s a camp of those Smashwords heretics that needs some education. Now, before we go –” He bows his head in sudden prayer. “May Amazon find us and bless us and keep our royalties high.”

“Ay-men.”

* * *

The publishing chatter has gotten weird again.

This time, it might be weirder than ever. For a while there, it felt like we were learning toward a matured, more nuanced conversation. Less cheerleading, more caretaking. Fewer Anakin Skywalkers running around, angry enough to lightsaber children, and more Obi-Wans dispensing wisdom and keeping his lightsaber mostly holstered.

We are, sadly, experiencing a minor hiccup in good sense and reason.

Because once again, we are treated to writing and publishing becoming an US versus THEM dichotomy. False dichotomy, actually, because it’s an absurd notion, that we exist on opposite sides of things — writers, who are ostensibly bent toward writing good stories, aren’t in opposition with one another no matter how we put those stories out into the world.

But that’s the language we’re once more hearing. Because two big companies (Hachette, Amazon) are having a slap-fight in public view. And various pundits and polemicists have ascribed almost cosmic significance to the battle — a battle whose exact permutations are veiled behind clouds of PR and propaganda. The Guardian reminds us that “authors take sides,” and I’ve seen talk that compares publishing to war and revolution.

I just want to inject a little sanity into the conversation and say: while I quite like Scalzi’s “football” metaphor, some of the rhetoric surrounding publishing sounds more like we’re arguing religion or politics. It has the whiff of left-wing versus right-wing, atheism versus Christianity, good versus evil. Propaganda has a clever way of making it seem like, if we let THOSE OTHER PEOPLE “win,” then next think you know we’ll be gay-marrying our guns and have to drink organic pesticide out of terrorist hand grenades. Cats marrying dogs and Felix stabbing Oscar in the shower and all that.

It’s fine to think about these things. It’s good to have strong opinions about these things. Problem is, treating this like a war isn’t a very good way to make decisions about your art or the business of your art. Seeing two sides in publishing — whether it’s Amazon versus the Big Five or self-pub versus trad-pub or what — is almost dipshittedly reductivist, but also convinces you that your choices are far, far fewer than they actually are.

(My god, AMAZON VS. THE BIG FIVE sounds like a comic book, doesn’t it?)

I mean, even inside self-publishing, you can see various schisms — a visit to a forum like kboards reveals disagreements aplenty, some of which are helpful to watch, others of which are almost scary in their ideological posturing. Some traditional publishers love Amazon. Others despise them. Others still are like, “Ennnh, whatever gets it done?” Some go hybrid. Some don’t have the time, energy, inclination or skill-sets.

Presenting this as if it’s TWO SIDES, SO PICK ONE completely misrepresents the sheer potential of the landscape. This is a truly bad-ass time to be an author, and this makes it sounds like we’re fighting some fucking apocalyptic hell-battle on steeds made of Kindles and jousting ostriches ridden by slavemaster Big Five editors. You can do so much with your work, now. And when you find that one door closes — you can just take that other door over there. Or that one, or that other one, or that window, or you can stay right here and publish stories for your cat. You have a bonanza of options, grabbing hold of the advantages and disadvantages intrinsic to each.

We have choices.

More than we have ever had.

I fucking love having choices.

I like that I can buy things online. Or go to Target. Or the grocery store. Or the farmer’s market. Or eBay. Or Amazon. I can get a nice couch from the furniture store or one stained with blood and serial killer jizz from Craigslist. I can buy beef jerky made from a cow I just met a few weeks ago or I can eat Slim Jims made by enslaved sea creatures. (That’s the only thing that can explain the existence of Slim Jims.) I can, as an author, publish myself. I can hire an editor. Or not. I can talk to my readers. Or not. I can answer questions on Goodreads, I can submit to agents, publishers big and small and in-the-middle. I can stick, feint, duck, move.

I can do whatever the hell I want.

Picking a side by pretending there are only two will fuck that all up.

Do not do it.

When you see this kind of agitprop, call it out as what it is.

It is hot, bubbling monkey menses.

That’s not to say this stuff isn’t important. Or that you cannot or should not make business decisions and vote with your dollar. You can, and jolly well should. But once again I call for an end to lazy thinking and zealous cult-leader posturing put forth by camps who, surprise surprise, benefit when you join their army.

Approach this with empathy and logic.

Know yourself and know what works for you, and don’t let anyone try to take choices off the table. Traditional authors are not slaves. Self-published authors are not idiots. Hybrid authors are, admittedly, time-traveling terminators — though be assured that we’re totally cuddly and surely harmless. Remember too that in asserting the false dichotomy, you’re risking telling other people that their choices are invalid. You don’t want them to say that to you, right? You don’t want them to take away the validity of your choices — or take away your choices in general? Remember that the things you say have the potential to hurt authors and limit the choices of readers — because this is about their choices, too. Readers don’t have to buy from Amazon. They don’t have to read only work curated by Big Publishing. They, like authors, don’t have to pick sides.

They want good books, goddamnit.

So let’s give them good books in whatever way suits us.

Support authors and support readers.

Support the culture of stories and publishing as a means to get those stories into the world.

Stick. Feint. Duck. Move.

This isn’t a crusade. This isn’t Blue versus Gray.

Neither side has Vatican assassins.

Fuck false dichotomies and made-up publishing gods.

You don’t have to join the revolution or choose targets on the other side.

Otherwise, you might dig your heels in so hard the horse you’re riding dies underneath you.

As noted earlier here today — the Howey-led petition to give Amazon a tongue-bath feels almost creepily overblown. I have lots of criticisms: It’s too long by about 3000 words. It agitates. It takes a while to get to its point. It’s established as a “petition,” which is ostensibly a tool to accomplish something. It feels like a corporation ego stroke, as if right now Amazon is sitting in a bar somewhere, sipping on a bitter cocktail, wondering why nobody likes it. (Meanwhile Hobby Lobby, that bastard, is out living it up! Though without birth control, because Jesus hates IUDs.)

Anyway.

I do not think the petition works.

I think it speaks only to its most cultish base, which is probably not ideal. I don’t think anybody speaking only to their base is particularly interesting or engaging. I prefer, as always, a moderate approach. Point your megaphones to the people who aren’t listening rather than the frothing crowd already behind you.

So, if one wanted to cobble together a more sane and sound response to the Amazon protest letter penned by some industry giants (Patterson, Preston, Patterson — wow, they sound like a legal firm), what would it, or could it, look like?

It’d be short.

It wouldn’t be a petition.

It’d go to media, but also posted on relevant blogs to increase commentary and viral transmission.

It could be co-signed by a lot of self-publisher venerables.

It might read, in fact, like this:

“We respectfully disagree with the Amazon protest letter and believe that Amazon represents one part of a diverse publishing environment. We also feel that Amazon has helped to revolutionize publishing and is working for readers and authors, not in opposition to them. Amazon continues to put books in the hands of readers all around the country — in fact, the world — and has done more good for publishing than bad.

Further, we respectfully call on all publishers to work toward more equitable royalties and deal terms for their author partners. We support authors and want to keep as many avenues for those authors open — and as advantageous — as possible to maintain the health of books and book culture.”

Then, I dunno, you’d write THE END and be happy it was under 500 words. (Actually, I think that’s about 100 words, so huzzah for brevity.) Short and sweet. Still lots one could disagree with, and I’m not putting this out as my letter — rather, I just wanted to demonstrate what a short and moderate response letter could look like. I feel like this is sharp enough, middle-of-the-road enough, and still gets the message across without sounding like it’s time to pass the Flavor-Aid around the Jonestown campfire. It doesn’t demonize anybody, doesn’t throw anybody under the bus, doesn’t elevate anybody to Empyrean pillars. Sounds (theoretically) mature. I mean, if I were really the one writing it, I’d probably throw a couple “fucks” and “poop noises” in there, just to brand it as my own, but whatever. Your mileage can and should vary.

Of course, if you’re really truly confident that self-publishing is the way forward, then I don’t know why you’d need to write this response letter at all. You’d just drive by on your blinged-out jet-skis, throwing up devil-horns and spraying the stodgy old trad-pubbers in their dinghy with a mist of Cristal. Somewhere, the news would report on graffiti seen all over the world:

AUTHOR-PUBLISHERS RULE

TRAD-PUBBERS DROOL

WOOOOOOO

*jet-ski vroom*

(If you’d like another moderate look at it — here, Scalzi puts forth: “Amazon, Hachette, Publishing, Etc. — It’s Not A Football Game, People.”)

Hugh Howey has a petition out for… well, I don’t know exactly what it’s for, except I think it’s like, an anti-boycott for Amazon? A love-fest for Amazon? I’m not sure.

You can find this petition here.

You have to get through a lot of text to get to what I suspect is the point of the piece:

You may be urged to boycott Amazon. But a call to boycott Amazon is unavoidably a call to boycott authors who can’t get their books into other stores. Boycotting Amazon is unavoidably a call for higher e-book prices. Boycotting Amazon is preventing us from reaching you. It is an end to our independence.

The best way to support Hachette’s authors is by showing Hachette where you prefer to get your books. Let Hachette know that you agree with Amazon that e-books should not cost more than paperbacks. Help us urge Hachette to stop hurting its own writers. Help us urge them to agree to reasonable terms with Amazon.

It is fitting that Independence Day is upon us. Amazon has done more to liberate readers and writers than any other entity since Johannes Gutenberg refined the movable type printing press. With the advent of e-books and the ability to ship paper books to your doorstep in record time and at affordable prices, Amazon is growing overall readership while liberating the voices of countless writers, adding to the diversity of literature. A large percentage of the e-books sold on Amazon are from independent authors. You have validated our decision to write and to publish. Don’t let the wealthiest of writers convince you to turn away.

We urge you to support the company that supports readers and authors. Amazon didn’t ask us to write this letter, or sign it. Amazon isn’t aware that we’re doing this. Because in the end, this isn’t about Amazon. It’s about you, the reader, and the changes you’ve helped bring about with your reading decisions. You are changing the world of books, and you are changing our lives as a result.

Below, you will see the names of writers who thank you for your support. This is only a bare fraction of the people you have touched. Happy Independence Day.

Signed, your authors.

At this point, I’m left to wonder if Independence Day is the new April Fool’s.

I don’t know exactly why Mega-Company Amazon needs a… petition of support? I like Amazon well enough, and as my publisher they’ve been aces. I don’t boycott them — but I also try to diversify my buying habits in the same way I try to diversify my reading and writing and publishing habits. But I also recognize that Amazon has received a lot of criticism for the way it does business (as have many big publishers, to be clear), and further, puts out an e-book environment where you do not really own your e-books. I’ve also read some contracts from Amazon that are bad or worse than some of the contracts you get from big publishers. This isn’t meant to suggest that Amazon is an Evil Monster (I note the laziness of that too-easy thinking here, in an earlier post one month ago today). It’s just meant to suggest —

Well, we don’t need a fucking petition to support them.

They’re not an underdog.

They’re not your savior.

This petition reads like they’re beatific saints descending from crepuscular rays to upend cornucopias of food atop the heads of the homeless. If I didn’t know who wrote it, I’d legit think it was straight-up satire.

I respect Hugh’s interest in supporting the environment that clearly supports him. But this is deeply, weirdly, head-scratchingly absurd. This is, what, a boycott against the boycott? A love letter to a company? I don’t even know. At this point I’m having trouble reading it as anything other than a missive from Bizarro-World.

Some quick thoughts on bits from the petition:

“Petition by: Your Writers.”

No. I don’t support petitions like this. You shouldn’t support a petition like this even as a self-published author. I will scream this in your ear as long as I can: diversify diversify diversify. Amazon is not your mother. It’s not your god. It’s a company. Does good things. Does bad things. *shakes head so hard blood comes out of ears*

“To Thank Our Readers”

Thanking readers is nowhere to be found in this petition.

It is a petition thanking Amazon.

Not even individual people at Amazon.

Just… Amazon. Like, the entity.

“By what is being reported in the media, it may seem like Amazon is restricting what readers can access. It may seem that they are marginalizing authors.”

They are. This is literally true. You might believe that this is a good move in the long run — and you could make an argument that supports Amazon in this, just as you could make one in reverse. But this is literally actually true, not like, spin by the Giant Publishing Machine.

“All the complaints about Amazon should be directed at Hachette.”

All of them? Including complaints about warehouse conditions? Hey, last week they fucked up an order of Transformers and sent it to — well, honestly, I dunno, but now I know who to send my complaints to. HEY HACHETTE: AMAZON’S PRIME SHIPPING DOESN’T ALWAYS WORK LIKE THEY SAY IT DOES. ASSHOLES.

More seriously, some arguments have noted that Hachette has maybe earned this spanking from Amazon. Certainly some publishers have helped feed the beast that is Amazon and have done poorly by their authors. I agree with that. This is not really the way to achieve parity and to improve things, by my mileage.

“High e-book prices are not good for readers, and they aren’t good for writers.”

I agree. But isn’t this how the market works? They charge too much and… people don’t buy it, so they’re forced to be competitive? Hasn’t that already happened? Perhaps I’m being naive here.

“Amazon pays writers nearly six times what publishers pay us.”

Yes, and I am all for publishers paying authors more. But it’s also worth considering that Amazon is literally not your publisher. (I mean, they’re mine, but as Skyscape.) Amazon does very little for you except act as a receptacle for your book. Which might be genius. Which might be dogshit. They literally don’t care. It’s a socket and into it you can shove diamonds, candy, cat feces, bezoars, babies, whatever. The reason they don’t take a lot of that coin is because… they don’t do anything for you. Like edit. Market. Distribute physical copies. So on, so forth. Some authors want that, some don’t. The trick isn’t going ALL-IN with Amazon, the trick is demanding better from all publishers, all companies. The trick is to support authors, not corporations. People over corporate entities. (This feels particularly tone deaf considering the CORPORATIONS HAVE OPINIONS shift with Hobby Lobby. Petitions in sympathy of companies is cuckoo banana sundae.)

“Hachette is looking out for their own interests, not the interests of writers or readers.”

And Amazon is not Mother Theresa tending to lepers.

Like, I can’t —

I don’t even?

What is happening?

Listen.

Here’s how you thank Amazon:

Buy shit from them.

Here’s how you thank authors:

Buy their books.

Here’s how you don’t thank Amazon:

Buy elsewhere.

Here’s how authors thank readers:

Just, like, thank them. Thank them in person. Over email. Over the social media frequency. Offer deals when you can. Help get your books in their hands. Be awesome to them. Don’t write weird petitions to them that aren’t really to them at all.

You don’t aim your high-five for readers at Amazon.

Vote with your dollar. But please, seriously, don’t sign any weird petitions like this. Howey’s deservedly a bookworld superstar, so I suspect he’ll get all the signatures he needs — though for what effect, I have no idea, as this petition feels like a hollow stroke-job that accomplishes absolutely nothing except blowing a blush of hot, fragrant breath toward Amazon and away from authors and readers. This feels like shilling — uncomfortable, in-the-bag, straight-up-shilling.

My message to Hugh would be: I prefer it when you advocate for authors, not for companies. Hugh has been increasingly “all-in” with Amazon — and this is counter to how many authors have been successful with author-publishing. It doesn’t feel instructive. It feels deliberately cozy with the other side of Big Publishing. (And anybody who thinks Amazon isn’t just its own version of Big Publishing has lost their mind.) Like I said before: I’m happy with my experiences with Amazon. I agree they have changed the face of publishing, in many ways for the awesome, in some ways for the whoa what the fuck. They have been a wonderful publisher for my work. But — c’mon. C’mon.

C’MON.

Okay, this petition really is satire, right?

Yes? Maybe?

[note: it’s been made clear this isn’t Howey’s petition so much as one he co-authored and is presently championing — but it is reportedly the work of several self-published authors. I respectfully suggest that as a group they might want to get an editor, as this thing reads like it’s about 3000 words too long.]