The Experiment: The Work Isn't Over When the Writing Is Done

Oy, vey.

Well I got an email from Publish America asking me to provide some additional material for the book, including cover art suggestions, a single-file version of the book, photos, copyright info, a mailing list to help get the word out that I'm being published, an author survery, a shortened synop...

Here I thought I was done until the proof copy was sent--other than marketing, of course...

Not that I'm complaining; this is exactly what I want to be doing. I'm just learning the hard way how much work is involved in the process.

The good news is I get free web space with my publisher; I'll most likely build a small page there and redirect to this weblog; I'll use the space they provide to host features that I'll X link to from here.

So, yes, that means the K Space Universe will be expanding again, and hopefully more of you will be tuning in to my continuing adventures here.

Now onto other events...

First, I'd like to give a shout-out to Crazy Dan, a fellow member of blogger who discovered the K Space Universe while Googling Acrobat. Now, whether he was looking for Adobe Acrobat or actual information about acrobats I don't know. However it does speak volumes about the power of the Google Search Engine.

And speaking of Google...

Re: Google fighting the action from the US Justice department, I feel it's about time that media companies--and individual Americans began standing up to the Bush régime and its continued attack on privacy, civil liberties, international law and world peace.

HOWEVER,

In light of Google agreeing to comply with the Chinese government's cowardly and oppressive censoring of the Internet. China is by far one of the most repressive and brutal countries in the world. While I personally don't believe that the Communist Chinese government represents a threat to the world, they certainly represent a threat to the lives of their citizens. For Google to enable China to continue to restrict its people from having access to information and to monitor their internet usage is certainly hypocritical in light of its brave defiance the United States Government. In fact, any courage inherent in Google's fight against the US Government is undone by the cowardice in its complicity in aiding and abetting the crimes of the Chinese government.

And I'd also like to say something about James Frye, the so-called "Author" of A Million Little Pieces.

The book was about his supposed struggle to overcome addiction and put his life back together, the tragedy that surrounded him, etc. etc. Turns out the lying bastard so distorted the truth he could have been on the Bush's Iraq Pre-War intelligence team.

You'll note I refused to link to either the book or the author. The book, it has been revealed, is largely an invention and a melodramatization of reality. Mr Frye has also embarrassed Oprah by hoodwinking her into believing his book was factual. Well, she had Frye on her show this afternoon and was tearing him to shreds.

Throughout, Mr Frye remained completely unapologetic and outright dismissive of the claims. His co-conspirators, the good folks at Doubleday also did their utmost to defend the book. And why not? If anything this controversy is making them money.

Big Publishing is about money. Nothing else. Doubleday didn't bother to fact check the big book of Frye's lies; when the lies came out they said that memoirs are BASED on reality and that there's a difference between a memoir and an autobiography. So what they're doing is putting spin on top of lies.

I'd like to offer up some advice to Doubleday, and to all Big Publishers: While you are busy worrying about the bottom line and publishing any shit you think you can sell, you are forcing good writers, with real stories to tell to languish in obscurity, or to find routes to becoming authors that you refuse to acknowledge with any remote degree of legitimacy.

I'm publishing with Publish America--an independant publisher who is trying to change things for the benefit of all the unknown voices out there who cannot get exposure because of what has been done to the publishing industry by corporate greed and literary arrogance.

Other people scrimp and save for years to self publish--and are dismissed by everyone from publishers to so-called "real" authors as vanity amateurs, wannabes and even frauds.

The hard truth is the garbage being published today by the big corporations is the real fraud: what passes as literature today is formulaic writing that could be composed by spread-sheet instead of by creative writing.

Big Publishers, you are denying the world this generation its Ernest Hemmingways, its Truman Capotes, Albert Camus, its JD Salingers or Hunter S Thompsons...Rare are the gems that manage to break through. Rarer still I fear they will become if you, the Big Publishers, continue to prostitute literature in the name of the bottom line.

How dare you proffer upon us frauds like James Frye? It is time for you, for ALL of you to take a look at the quality of so-called literature today and ask yourselves if you are truly in the business of publishing books. Who among today's crop of best-selling authors will be remembered in fifty years? A century? And how will you be remembered for what has been done to literature, as you sacrifice art upon the unholy altar of the Almighty Dollar?

On behalf of REAL writers everywhere, those of us who toil at creating work that truly DESERVES attention, those of us who will struggle in vain for years trying to get published, on behalf of those of us who will give up their dreams because of the kind of industry you have created, on behalf of the readers of the world who will be denied new classics and incredible literature, I call upon all of you to change your ways.

If book sales are falling, it is not the fault of the readers but of the publishers who have alienated them.

It is time for things to change, and I am proud to be doing something to make that change happen. I wholeheartedly endorse Publish America and companies like them, who dare to give unknowns the forum they deserve, the forum they need to succeed.