SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY.

Status: Currently writing on The Price of Freedom; Zombie Nation: Outbreak Zero

Doing: Writing this blog; surfing the net; answering e-mails

Watching: Bears vs. Cowboys (10-10; 3rd quarter with 6:24 left to play.)

Listening to: "Sugar Steps" by Kama Sutra (Visions of Ibiza; Chicane--Disc 1); "Maniacal" by Frontline Assembly; "Chemical End" by Death Horror Incorporated (or DHI)

Reading: Resistance by J.M. Dillard (ST-TNG)

TOPIC: CAR INDUSTRY ANALOGY WITH THE PUBLISHING WORLD

I've found that the whole business model of publishing has some severe design limitations.

In order for them to be successful, you have to write what they want for their little co-op readership.

Secondly, not every book gets selected for representation or publishing--which further limits what they can and cannot publish. (They've set up a box for themselves. A box that they cannot escape from so easily.)

Furthermore, they limit themselves to an ever-changing publishing standard which further alienates even more writers from becoming successful. In order for them to be accepted, they have to lower themselves to the same level at which the publishing apparat operates.

Depending on how you look at it, it can be good for you. But then again, it may not be--since there are a lot of inherent pitfalls.

And on top of that, the whole enchillada is slow to adapt, slow to respond, and slow to evolve to anything which threatens their little domain of absolute supremacy.

So of course, you'll see a lot of vanity-press rackets pop up. Because they are catering to a wide audience of desperate and blind authors--who are ill-equipped to deal with the burdens of being published traditionally.

But at the same time--the publishing industry is ill-equipped to deal with the foreknowledge that their time is now limited by the very technologies which have made their cornerstone of the marketplace--obsolete. The same technologies which they had--at first--spurned out of hand.

And it's that same technology which has allowed each and every one of us to break out of the 'wait and see' mold.

Why wait to see if something good comes around? If it's not there, then invent it yourself. Give yourself a home. A platform from which to operate from.

Let the publishing industry wallow in blind obscurity and the vanity-presses die in blithe arrogance--into believing that they are 'traditional press ops'.

Waiting is for fools. No man (or woman) should have to put their dreams of success on hold because some corporate snog told them they "weren't good enough".

That's what pioneers are for. To blaze new trails.

At least, that's how I look at this whole thing.