Thoughts on Publishing

As I'm still on the outskirts of the publishing world, making my way from reader to successful writer, I've been learning more about how publishing works. Rather, how publishing works now. Ten years ago, I knew how publishing worked then. I've been trying to keep up with changes in the industry and these last couple of years have been amazing. I'll be sharing what I learn as I go along but I am not an authority and I'm not trying to set myself up as one, I'm just someone passing on what I've learned recently.

With all that in mind, I had to share this post from John Barnes that I was sent to late last night from Dean Wesley Smith's blog.

The publishing perplex as found in the secret diary of Aunt Edna

Aunt Edna, of course, is the writer. Somehow or other she got hold of the basic source of the family’s wealth, and this is manifestly hard on everyone except Edna (and doesn’t always do her very much good either). She is flighty, irresponsible, impossible, cranky, and has far too many opinions on far too many subjects. She rotates between several dysfunctional states of being: charming in a very manipulative, sucking-up kind of way; inexcusably rude and arrogant; desperately frightened and begging to be saved from dangers real and imaginary; pathetically needy; and a host of other crazed states, a few of them all right and even pleasant, most of them shudder-worthy. The only way the whole family works is if Edna behaves long enough to give them access to the family fortune every month, so that the bills get paid, and everyone lives with the uncomfortable fact that Edna is there, must be kept happy, and mustn’t get her way. If Edna really understands what is going on in the rest of the household, her behavior becomes impossible, but if she is kept in ignorance, then her demands become impossible.