I’m not sure it’s misogyny; that’s hatred of women. This strikes me as misandry; tearing down men in any way they can, preying on male insecurities and noting rewards for being “good little boys.” It’s inherently misandrist.

All in all though I found that a lot of the ads this year really just made my skin crawl. Many of them where flatly stupid, and there seemed to be a running misogynistic undercurrent; lots and lots of exortations to men to “reclaim” their manliness, stop being so feminized, etc. Such an overt level of rah-rah machoness it was like they’d all been designed by the boys at Sterling Cooper. The one that really struck me was the car ad (I forget which car-whoops) in which Michael C. Hall (“Dexter”) reads a list of “obligations” he performs for his wife that justify him getting said automobile. The subtext of passive-agressiveness & emasculation resentment was barely a subtext at all.

That Google ad, on the other hand? Brilliant.

Ieva: I responded to your comment with another predicated on a faulty premise. I think your identifying e-books as a marketing device is sound. I at least think there should be longer excerpts available online. But the other post was wondering after those e-rights, and why their included with hardcover rights in the first place. But then again, publishers purchase overall rights, I realized, after further review, and paperback pubs have to buy those rights from the original publisher, who cuts the author in for a portion of the deal.

I’m not sure that’s the best business model, though. I’m not sure I know an alternative, but something about strikes me it could work better in a lot of different ways.

Anyhow, I doubt that a sane publisher would hand over the rights to an electronic edition of the book to author so that author can beat them with under-pricing a book. After all, this didn’t happen even when e-books were practically nonexistent, no way it would happen now when they are gaining more and more weight. There’s a lot of money publisher invests into a book directly (editor, copy editor, designer and whatnot), plus a lot of overhead expenses (rent, electricity etc) that publishers have to cover from their income. They would need to charge the author for getting e-rights back which sounds sorta…weird. So I don’t think you can get one without the other, at least not on regular basis.

How about: small press for hard copies – companies that really care about your work – and self publisher online? It’s happening already, I’m sure.

And very few of us manage to get paid for it.”

As a long time slogger, erm, I mean blogger, you have succinctly put into words the struggle. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thrown in the towel – usually on the heels of yet another rejection from one publisher or another.

This year I’ve decided to just write. I’ve built up enough of a following to know my writing makes a difference somehow, somewhere and I’m resisting the urge to “tell them all to go to hell” everytime my subscription list goes down.

Though your quote from The Joker from the linked post is something that haunts me, I’m just now exploring what it means to be able to write for an audience who appreciate what I have to say.

I’m trying to sink into the moment instead of invalidating it. After all, there was a time when the only people who read my stuff were my mother and all the good people on my Christmas card list.

I’m still, however, bitter and not there yet

Wow.

I’m so glad I found your blog again.

And so glad we both escpapred the trappings of Myspace.

Shakespeare wasn’t always popular, actually. There were times he went largely unknown.

You can think it’s silly, and we’ll agree to disagree. For me, as a reader, King’s always been a better writer, overall, than Updike, whom I find as boring and tedious as Oates. Sure, King’s had some stinkers, but he’s done great stuff, too. To dismiss him as simply a popular storyteller, seems, to me, a bit silly. Like I said, though, I wanted to teach structure and plot; I think you’ll agree I couldn’t really find either with Updike. Or most other authors acclaimed by critics, most of whom seem to think “literature” is synonymous with “mess.”

Anyway, glad to hear you are letting students choose from a reader, which means that they can enjoy the class even if they might happen to agree more with me than with you here.

I haven’t read Strawberry Spring that I can remember. I’ll look for it.

I guess I should mention that I don’t have a problem with King per se, and I have read and enjoyed a few of his books, including Skeleton Crew, It, The Shining, and the first couple Gunslinger novels. He does a lot of interesting stuff, and I especially like the way he intercuts the characters’ thoughts with the narrative voice. That being said, I think that comparing him favorably to Updike in terms of agility with language and character is a bit silly.