Viral Catalysts, Passive Discoverability, Nothing But a Crock of Shit.

"I don't like that guy, Davey. He's not telling us what we want to hear."

Louis Shalako

When Smashwords founder Mark Coker stands up in front of yet another convention packed with wannabes and speaks about viral catalysts, what is he really talking about?

What does he want?

What is he telling you to do?

What he wants is for you to spend $500.00 on a book cover. What he wants is for you to spend $2000.00 on a ‘professional’ editor. What he wants is for you to spend $425.00 on a Kirkus five-star review. What he wants is for you to do the million-blog tour.

He wants to see enthusiasm. The more mindless that enthusiasm, the better.

Enthusiasm is the opposite of critical thinking.

He wants you to put everything you got into it. The odds of you becoming a bestseller are miniscule. 

Your costs are not his costs—but he gets a dime for every book you sell through his platform.

He cheerfully admits that Smashwords and other digital, do-it-yourself vanity publishing platforms have enabled millions of ‘horrible’ books to enter the marketplace. And that’s okay with him.

I don’t even really care either. Your books aren’t going anywhere. You’re the only one that doesn’t see it.

While ninety-nine percent of book buyers might go away satisfied with their purchase, it’s pretty obvious ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine percent of Smashwords authors will eventually go away disappointed too, and I reckon they’ll be walking a bit funny when they do.

It’s a very exploitive business model, and it’s not too hard to predict that at some point in the future, there will be a reaction. There’s going to be some pushback.

This is just the thin end of the wedge.

All the optimism, all the talk of ‘control’ in digital publishing is a crock of shit.

In a previous blog post, I noted that all of my titles appeared on txtr, while there were quite a few missing on OverDrive. I contacted SW staff. Marcus V reshipped all of those titles and they appeared back on the OverDrive website. A mere matter of weeks later, I could not help but note that two-thirds of my titles were unaccountably missing from txtr.

How in the hell did that happen, Mister Coker? When SW staff asked me to provide links to the missing titles I asked them how often I could reasonably be expected to do that. The lady refused to answer the question. I’ll be damned if I can go back once a week to every stinking distribution channel, check to see what books have mysteriously gone missing, and spend a half hour for each pen-name, each platform, and provide SW with those links on the off chance that the titles won’t just disappear again within a week.

What that means is that we are now on our own.

What is professional editing?

Professional editing is when you pay someone two bucks a page and they go through your book, mark it up with red ink and send it back to you. The most substantive editing is content editing. This is also the most expensive editing.

I’m not denying that most writers need and use editors.

Unfortunately my skills are such that finding an editor that is actually better than me is virtually impossible. After twenty years on an Ontario Disability Support Program pension, there is just no way that I can afford thirty-five bucks, or fifty bucks, or a hundred bucks for a book cover. I have a hundred and fourteen titles and five pen names.

I don't have any money.

Mr. Coker is essentially telling me that I write too fast. He’s telling me to slow down. He’s saying he’s not going to make any money off me if I don’t sink more money, a lot more money, into the product displayed in his store.

At fifty bucks a cover, that would be $5,700.00 in covers alone.

It took five years to make my first thousand dollars from this industry. With a bit of luck, the way things are going, I will be very fortunate to make $1,000.00 this year. It is true the bulk of that will come from Smashwords, as passive discoverability, (remember all those viral catalysts?) absolutely does not work on certain other platforms. This is especially true of Amazon, who play all kinds of dirty little tricks to get exclusivity, who are constantly price-matching, and quite frankly Amazon is the biggest crock of shit in this entire marketplace.

At least they have the grace to keep their mouth shut.

There are an estimated thirty million books listed on Amazon, the vast bulk of them either unremarkable or downright horrible. No matter how good (or bad) a book might be, it’s not going to be passively discovered there and everybody knows it.

Everybody knows it and that’s why they sign up for Kindle Select, that’s why they blog and spam, that’s why they pay for reviews and that’s why they’re always clubbing together and giving each other as many five-star reviews as they can generate. That’s why they load up the front of their books with crock of shit blurbs, written by crock of shit folks who haven’t even read the crock of shit book…fifty five star reviews written by their friends and relatives before the book ever comes out. 

They make a science of lying to and misleading prospective readers.

There is nothing fair or even reasonable about this industry. Bad books end up on the New York Times list all the time. I’ve read many of them.

The editing for content is shit in some of those books. I’m talking authors like Robert Ludlum, Jack Higgins and Clive Cussler. Some of that editing for content is shockingly bad, and in the case of Cussler, the dialogue stinks much of the time. If Dirk Pitt ties a rope on his ass and plunges into one more God-damned underground river while Al Giordino stands there with a thumb up his ass telling all who will listen that Dirk is the bravest and luckiest and smartest and sexiest man alive, I think I am going to puke.

My books meet or exceed all industry standards in terms of editing and proofreading. One of the reasons for that is because this industry is a cash cow that has never been seriously challenged in the past. It’s also not very good sometimes.

The other thing is that I have the skill, a skill acquired over thirty-one years, and I take the time. This is no guarantee of success, in fact the opposite seems to be true.

I am quite frankly shocked by the number of people who can’t spell, can’t write, or simply can’t be bothered to turn on grammar check. They spend four or five grand on some shit book that is supposed to make them some money. They set the price at $0.99 on Amazon, where it is going to take a hell of a long time, at a royalty of $0.35 per copy, to cover your costs. They still think they have a right to succeed as authors. Why, just look at all the money those bourgeois crocks of shit have spent on their books. For every thousand you spend on your book, you will have to sell two thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven copies just to make the costs back. How many people on Amazon or any other platform do you think sell anywhere near three thousand books? How long do you think it takes for them to do that?

They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t have certain expectations—expectations that they feel are reasonable. If that isn’t a sense of entitlement, I would sure like to know what is. The fact that you spent money on it doesn’t make it a good book, and it doesn’t make you a good writer. It is pure vanity much of the time.

The sooner you get out of the business, the better it will be for you, and quite frankly, the better it will be for readers, and the rest of us who genuinely must be writers, which, under some circumstances, is a fate worse than death.

Trust me on that one.

I'm in a position to know, which is more than can be said for the professional cheerleaders.

END

The Poverty Challenge.

It'll never happen to a nice guy like you, sir.

Louis Shalako

If you honestly believe that a person can work their way up from poverty, then I have the challenge for you.

What we’re going to do is take away all of your resources. We’ll start you off in a new town. We’ll take away all of your friends. We’ll write your resume for you. You aren’t allowed to use any of the skills you have. This will make it a fair challenge because you’re such a successful person already.

You’re different. There’s something special about you—you’ve been blessed by the hand of God Himself. It explains your prosperity, doesn’t it?

God sought you out and did you this special little favour. We’ve asked God to sit this one out.

But, since you’re so smart, no doubt it will be easy enough for you to overcome the challenge of grubby clothes and shoes, a crappy haircut and shaving with a disposable razor from the Salvation Army. You will enjoy the fact that no one, absolutely no one, listens or gives a rat’s ass what happens to you.

We’re going to give you some strong meds. It doesn’t matter if you need them or not, this will make you feel better. We’re going to numb you down so that things don’t hurt quite so much—surely you can see that our way is better. Especially when it’s time for clear thinking. Think of it as an equalizer—because you clearly are a superior person.

We’re going to distort your perceptions so that you can learn to think like a poor person. We’re going to convince you that the whole world is out to get you and that you can’t get a break anywhere. Don’t worry, there are plenty of part-time, minimum-wage jobs out there.

Having a bad day? Why not walk nine or ten kilometres across town to the Mental Health Survivor’s Support Centre? The coffee’s shit but it is free—and there are all sorts of people there for you to talk to. If you’ve got a couple of smokes or some spare change you’ll be making friends, friends for life. 

They’re just dying for a leader—why don’t you organize them, and then sit there endlessly, listening patiently, while they offer helpful suggestions on how you can best get things done. You’ve got nothing but time on your hands—we’re going to help you waste it.

Our time might be precious, yours isn’t. What happens to you doesn’t matter.

Don’t worry about the homeless shelter, we’re going to set you up in a working-class walk-up.

We’ll give you a pension of about eleven hundred a month and tell you that the world holds infinite promise. If that’s not good enough for you, there’s always welfare of about six or seven hundred a month. Once you’ve got the rent paid, your problems are over—right?

We’ll tell you when your attitude is the problem. We will laugh hysterically when you fail and somehow miss all the little victories. That means nothing to us.

You’ll have a card that tells you when you can go to the food bank. If you call the Suicide Hotline, the cops will be at your door in ten minutes. Three days later, we’ll boot you out of the hospital and nothing has changed. You’re still on your own, aren’t you?

Where are all the doctors and nurses now, eh? You’re still starving, and you’re still behind on all the bills and you still don’t have a friend in the world.

We’ll give you a bus pass, so that if you want to go west, first you have to go north, south and then east before transferring. There’s a twenty minute wait between buses.

You say it would be quicker to walk.

Haha! Sorry, but we just broke your back, cut off your legs, we’ve been starving you for many years now. Anyway, that bus pass is a sixty-dollar value. You seem rather ungrateful.

Oh, we’ve decided to jack the price of food. Don’t worry, it’s not inflationary—food and fuel are volatile items, so they don’t count towards inflation or the cost of living.

If you walk through a strange neighbourhood, and the cops accost you, don’t take it too personally. It’s just that someone saw you, and they feared for the big screen TV, the purebred pit-bull/Rottweiler/Chihuahua mix, they feared for the children. They feared you were bringing down the property values, the only values they have. They thought you were going to steal their Lexus.

More than anything they want to judge you, and to smash your head in with a rock.

That’s because people like you are just unexploded bombs waiting for a chance to happen. You are sick, and evil, and unclean—the way God made you in His infinite wisdom

Sooner or later, you won’t be able to take it any longer and that’s when your thoughts themselves become illegal.

People will get offended when you tell them how you feel.

They get even more offended when you absolutely refuse to take their helpful advice, but honestly, you really ought to try and become a little more like them.

It’s okay. A smart person like you will work their way out of poverty in no time flat.

Here, take this little piece of paper and these two shuffling, sniffling old winos. Some little old lady on Brock St. needs her garage cleaned out.

It pays twenty bucks, and it will probably take all day. This is your future—working two or three times a month with other useless people. You can always go downtown and volunteer to help those less fortunate than yourself. There's always someone, eh? That's the spirit.

You and your new friends will be able to get yourself a case of beer. No need to worry about tomorrow now, eh?

We’ve got that all figured out for you. You’ll be downtown with a broom and dustpan, picking up cigarette butts in no time.

Because the devil makes work for idle hands.

END

Any Asshole Can Be Taught to Read.

Louis Shalako

Some form of standardized testing has been around in Ontario for many years.

In Grade Six, in elementary school, there were tests of math and reading skills.

In the early seventies, the local separate (Roman Catholic) school board brought in a new program.

Students who tested higher or much higher than average were advanced to the next level.

What this meant was that a Grade Six student who read well found themselves sitting in a Grade Eight class for English and a Grade Seven class for mathematics.

On the standardized reading and comprehension test, I was apparently reading at first-year university level. That was as high as the scale went. The math was more like Grade Eight or Nine. Obviously they couldn’t provide that sort of material to a twelve year-old kid.

On the one hand, the system was proud of me and wanted to take credit for my ability. This was unfortunately not borne out by the numbers turned in by the student population as a whole. I guess they figured they had to do something, as the separate board relied on funds provided by the province—as long as they were meeting minimum educational standards.

One of the things the program did was to draw the student to the attention of the bullies. A couple of years of physical development goes a long way at that age. They were always bigger, stronger, more experienced, but then the bully isn’t interested in a fair fight. He wants to inflict punishment on someone who can’t fight back.

Once you learn how to fight back, they quickly lose interest.

Every person who ever attended school in this or any other country knows all about schoolyard bullies. So one of the additional benefits of this program was to teach the student unarmed combat skills in a fun, engaging and informal way. You learn all about knock-em-down, drag-em-out people skills at recess, lunch hour, you name it. It’s all about social status, isn’t it, social status among the more immature members of society.

(They watch a lot of TV, don’t you know. And the good guy always wins the fight, right?)

There comes that day when your tormenter, the worst of the bunch, comes up, mouth going, and you know enough to punch that cocksucker right in the mouth, no questions asked. Be the one to do it first. Don’t wait around for that barely educated, opinionated little prick to make the first move.

What did you think was going to happen there, asshole?

Another thing it does is split the student away from their contemporaries. Now everyone hates you. 

On the plus side, you can take ‘em—no matter who they are, and you know it, too. You ain’t shy no more, are you? They’re all cowards anyways.

What was really schizoid about this grand experiment was the way the school board abandoned it after a couple of years.

At this point, the accelerated former Grade Six student had taken Grade Eight English for two years in a row already. They had taken Grade Seven math twice. On exam day, all the really cool guys say hi. They pat you on the back. They give you a smoke. Then they all cluster around your desk as the teacher hands out the papers. They want to see your answers. They want you right there, so they can whisper at you like their best buddy and you’re supposed to give up the answers and help them get through it.

Man, were they pissed, when just before we were told to turn the papers over on our desk and begin, when I got up and moved to another desk—right in the front row, right in front of Dingbat’s desk.

Screw you.

I did the work.

You didn’t.

Besides, you’re a fucking bully.

I don’t give a shit if you assholes pass or fail.

Back then there might have been thirty-five students in a room. One of the most painful ordeals was when the class had to take turns. We had to stand at our desk and read aloud. Everyone remembers this, and everyone sort of hated it at the time—even the ones that could actually read.

But there is no more sure way to determine someone’s reading level than to listen to them talk.

They give themselves away in pretty short order.

There was nothing more painful, nothing more calculated to raise my ire, than to have to sit in the class while some dummy, who clearly hadn’t done the homework (for the past eight or nine years), stumbled and mumbled and fumbled, and followed along the lines with a finger, lips moving as they tried to sound it out.

“Kwa-kwa…”

“Quick, Dwayne. The word is quick.”

Jesus, fucking Christ. And this is Grade Eight, for fuck’s sakes…

“Be quiet, Louis. Go ahead, Dwayne.”

No wonder we found school boring. It was intolerable really. At some point, those of us who kicked up enough of a fuss were excused from English class.

A guy called Phillip Morrison and I would be sent to the library, where we played table hockey with a roll of masking tape. There was a lot of shouting and laughing, as I recall. The librarian generally found something else to do during this time. No one quite knew where he got off to.

Our bullies, our tormenters, had moved on to high school, where they hopefully met their proper fate. We were no longer being beaten, or fighting for our lives and our dignity every stinking day on the way there, at lunch, and on the way home. We were bigger now, and better able to hold our own.

I stole quite a few books out of there, too.

The people who are against standardized testing are stupid cunts. Tell them fuckers to shut up.

As far as I'm concerned, any asshole can be taught to read.

END