We are living in an institutional world and I am an institutional girl.. or boy

There was a time when a person could be considered educated based on their knowledge.  You could ask a man a question and, based upon his answer, you’d simply know he was a “learned man”.  Let’s forget about the class struggles of such a time, or perhaps revisit that point later because this post really isn’t about being educated.  It’s about what the “civilized world” has done to take away our very basic ability to achieve greatness on our own terms.

Now you’re asking, “What the hell is he on about?” but with an oddly Scottish accent.  I’ve been doing those a lot in my mind today.

So here’s my gripe, with an eventual silverish lining.  Nowadays, I have to pay a university tens of thousands to certify that I am educated.  Forget that I’ve read thousands of articles, books, and essays on more topics than most people will ever know or even care to know about.  This snobbish elite gets to decide what bullet points quantify my knowledge as educated or uneducated. 

The same thing has been happening in the publishing world for decades.  There are those that get to decide what people will buy, and when I say people I mean buyers for big block book stores.  It comes down to marketing and what can be simply put on a book jacket.  Yeah it’s business and businesses have rules.  Businesses need to make money but we’re in the information age when the businesses that thrive are those that don’t stick to a formula created in the 50s and 60s.  The businesses that thrive have new ideas and do something with them. Apple.  Facebook.  Amazon. 

The most disheartening thing I ever learned about the publishing industry was just how very little a publisher will do to promote a new writer.  “Here’s your complimentary copies of YOUR book and our best wishes.  Don’t worry.  When you make it big we’ll spend some real money on you, probably.  Until then, promote yourself and we’ll keep the vast majority of your profits for the right to day you’re a published author.”  Sounds like a degree, doesn’t it?

And so this stale and stagnant business model is limping.  The buzzards are circling and the Indie Writer Revolution has come.  This movement was created by the convergence of anexplosive technological wave, started by Amazon’s Kindle, and perpetuated by the iPhone, iPad and subsequent Android devices, slamming headlong into the institutional walls of the “big 6” publishers.

After the bodies are cleared, or picked clean by the carrion eaters, what we have are new avenues opened for anyone to reach for that publishing dream.  Who cares what anyone else thinks.  You have options now.  You can self publish and be successful.  It won’t be easy.  In fact, unless you are among the extremely lucky, it will be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done but, it will be worth it.  Even if you fail, what is Bob, the nosey butt plug of a neighbor across the street, doing with his life?  I’ll tell you what.  That piece of shit’s drawing disability and staring at my front door ALL FREAKIN' DAY while I worked my ass off in three careers! 

Oh, sorry.  Don’t like Bob.  I’m doing more with my life than he ever thought of doing.  I don’t need a college degree to say I know what I know.  I don’t need an editor who’s never written or published a novel of their own, telling me I don’t have what it takes.  All I need is for everyone to get the hell outta my way and watch my smoke.

Success is the best revenge.  Try not to choke on it.

Listening to: Silverchair- Madman