Blase Eight by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Chapter 11- Credentials and Awards
Why are credentials important? Why don’t they just read the first five pages to see if there is any interest? This is easy to answer on a corporate level, especially when you recall that 90% of traditionally published books lose money. In that 90%
certain case, when groveling before his or her boss, the person who recommended the book being published has a much better shot at keeping their position if they can say; “Well, the writer had graduated from Yale, majoring in English, and had written some well accepted articles for “The New Yorker,” rather than; “In retrospect the writer’s lack of a formal education proved to be an issue, though I initially thought that our editors would be able to work their way around that.”
If you Wiki the names of famous post 1950 writers you might be amazed how many graduated from the same schools; Bennington College a big supplier. Various conclusions might be drawn. But, it is safe to say that without their kind assistance, we might not have been graced with “Less Than Zero” and “American Psycho.”
I don’t know if and why individual readers might also require credentials, if in fact they do. Perhaps it is some derivation of the “safety in numbers” thing.
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Any discussions of awards are totally dependent on the type of award. There are many, and they look snazzy on the front and back book cover.
So, you again correctly ask me; “Then how do I sell my books?” There are two honest answers. The first is; “I don’t.”
And the second is; “I haven’t the slightest idea, and if I did have one I wouldn’t tell you. I’d use it to sell my own, oh ye of eternal desperate hope.” I suspect that some will take offense at this and to them I say; “How many people have been that honest with you? In any given situation how many times have you heard someone say; ‘I don’t know?’ or ‘I’m looking out for myself.’ I find it a rare prize.”
During my GFR induced block I read many of the free pages available on AOS to find out how current name writers sound.
Some of it I consider abysmal. That’s what I expected. But, I was also pleasantly, or perhaps unpleasantly surprised to find some of it to be excellent; as good as anything I’ve ever seen on a box of Cheerios; all of thirty books. I hope you found that just an inch of amusing. The truth is something else, and it is a long ass story, and is not the subject of this book. Its crap for a reviewer.
It is apparent that Masters Degrees in English or Creative Writing qualify the recipient to do one thing very well; teach it and get a regular paycheck. But, as previously mentioned, I
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did find it uncanny how many name writers came out of the same schools. My guess is that these schools have a well-respected professor or two, who agents and publishers listen to. Mind you, even if this is the case, I’m not saying that success is pre-determined by the school or the professor, but just maybe that a writer from the appropriate citadel might have easier access to being looked at by people who matter in the literary world. And if they stink, they will soon be forgotten and the professor’s next recommendation will likely be taken with a grain of salt.
When he decided that he wanted to write, David Foster Wallace went back to school to take a writing course. When discussing that he said; “And I don’t recommend that to anyone.” Look at him now.
If that which is decrees that we can’t make any money, let’s at least have a good time writing those profound stories not yet heard. We already know them. It’s their loss if they don’t hear them. And, don’t forget to keep thanking those kind angelic reviewers. They make it okay in some ways; just not in the greenback department.
When I got tired of counting, I had located approximately 100,000 entities which bestow writing awards annually; ten of which may have some significance to someone. It’s irrelevant to
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this essay as the few which may have some monetary significance do not entertain indie books. Further, I did not locate any studies which correlated the awards with book sales.
My instincts suggest that one would be un-wise to seek any grantors of awards which require the payment of “entry fees” or insist on a number of physical copies of the book in question.
You’ll have to buy them at retail price and pay shipping charges.
Grants are great. The book doesn’t even have to be all that great to get one. Of course virtually all grants are given to graduates of Bennington, Yale, Princeton, Harvard and that year’s fashionable exotic.
The best deal seems to be chosen for “Oprah’s Book of the Month Club,” If that TV exposure doesn’t cause a “buzz,” nothing will. If offered, to maximize Oprah’s worth, first decline the honor. It will be news until you decide to accept it, at which point you can make up some spurious story about the original decline; like you were afraid that your book would be viewed as lower middle brow, but have since learned better. Hey, look what that sort of ploy did for sales of Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections.” Not too shabby and you only have to show up once.
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