Monday, September 16, 2013

An Overwhelming Fact Of Modern Publishing...



I wrote this yesterday, after trying to read a new fiction novel and giving up.

So I dropped into Twitter to see what was happening today and I was overwhelmed by books about zombies, dates from hell and the continuing rant about the conspiracy theory. Am I missing something here? Or has the publishing industry, including a large portion of indie books, gone absolutely mad?

There was a time when boy met girl and they found a relationship surrounding some interesting side effect, and it was called good. Now, in this new generation of bangers, hipsters and general Gothic low-lifes, it's considered punk if you write about girly vampires living in mainstream society, holding down jobs and killing half the population off by the end of the book.

Forgive my rant if you like these books. I'd like them too if I could wrap my head around the story of one. So far, the books I've read recently, were Star Trek re-visited, with the names changed, except they used warp drive and beaming, to boot. Plus, the editing was so bad, the only thing that held the story together was a good old fashioned love story in disguise.

What's going to happen in this next generation of indie authors? They will be responsible for a revolution in book publishing. If they can't bring the whale back to the boat, we'll be stuck with a generation of hellboys and zombies rising from the dead, that become mainstream fiction. Is this where our future lies? Witches, warlocks and all the rest? If so, the reading level of the next generation will be plummeting to a new low.

Enough said about my opinion. Have you read any good books recently?

4 comments:

  1. Monster, by Frank Peretti.

    Living in Oregon, I got a kick out of a mystery thriller that featured "creatures"... Yeti? Bigfoot? Sasquatch? Or??

    A good read, with a left-turn ending. I won't give it away.
    ;-)

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  2. It's something to think about, for sure...
    If your story doesn't feature some "other worldly entity" does that mean you are on the path to "story telling extinction"...? (for want of a better phrase)
    Writer In Transit

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    Replies
    1. Michelle: There are many authors that have good books out there. M. Pax has a series, The Backworlds, that is "other worldly" but has all the elements of a well told story, plus she offers the reader a view into the character's inner and outer problems. We watch her solve those problems and learn about ourselves in the process.

      I was only stating what I saw on one day one twitter. Perhaps I need to look a little closer at the other side? I doubt you are on the path to extinction, unless you offer a watered down zombie book. LOL!

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