Overton Window: Chapter 10-11

Chapter 10

At a certain point in my former career, I encountered a lot of self-published authors. Despite the stereotype, some had good reason for it—one author had a higher profit margin that way, a few others had lucrative but very specific non-fiction niche markets. But overall, and particularly when it came to fiction, self-published authors fell into one of two categories: entitled asses who couldn’t handle criticism and rejection, and people with undiagnosed and untreated mental health issues. I’m not saying that entitled asses and paranoid schizophrenics aren’t capable of writing decent books—most write better than Glenn Beck—but overall, they tend not to be very easy to work with. I got quite good at psychiatric diagnoses in five minutes or less. I would meet an author and determine that, should we be so brazen as to suggest editorial changes, she would threaten to sue and then accuse us of being part of the same evil conspiracy that had persecuted her throughout her life.

I was always proven right, by the way.

Anyway, Beck’s novel reads like it’s been written by someone who falls into two out of the three categories of self-published author. Owing to his celebrity status, of course, it was published by Simon and Schuster, but I get the sense that no editor came near this thing.

( I'm going to cut, as there's at least one squicky picture )

Conspiracy count: 8.5

Arrestfest update

bcholmes has the stats.

One-third of the charges have been dropped, which is one-third the amount that should have never been laid in the first place.

I am too tired to rant. You all know my opinion by now anyway.