CreateSpace wants you to believe that they can make
you a best-selling author – or at least one that might make some money. That’s
their business.
But you can take their bottom dollar, do all the
work of writing and setting everything up on your own and then upload it to
their computers, and they will print you something that looks like a book,
feels like a book and you can take into a coffeeshop and spill something on the
pages just like a book - for less money than you paid for that beverage you
just spilled. Plus shipping and handling of course.
Many people like to read. And many of those don’t
particularly care how they get their words. Amazon doesn’t care. I mean they
don’t give a flip one way or another about books or anything else, for that
matter. They care about one thing, just like any corporation. They are not
persons. Let’s be clear about that. Only people can care. And only some of them
do.
So if, for whatever reason, you want your coffee
beans roasted fresh, or just this dark and no darker, that probably indicates
that you are someone who cares about your coffee. And you can probably find
people who care about making it the way you like it so that when you sip your
coffee and smile and say ‘that’s good,’ you can hope that the baristas feel a
little satisfied with something more than just taking some of your money.
But Starbucks doesn’t know squat about the land of
the free and good enterprise. They’re empty phrases to a corporations. It’s not
about satisfaction and ‘good work.’ It’s
about controlling the market by hook or by crook. Some of the real people who can
only find work at Starbucks might care. But they would really rather be working
for themselves and for their customers if only the giants and pirates didn’t
control the land and the high seas.
And the book lovers - you know who you are. For
better or worse, Long Jeff Bezos on the
pirate ship Amazon doesn’t even notice that you exist. So scurry up the side of
that behemoth and then quickly drop back down onto your canoe and paddle away
with your self-published book.
You will never get your book onto a rack in every
airport around the country. But you could afford to leave it behind, next to your
empty cup of coffee. A book lover might see it, pick it up and page through it,
not with a click, but with a coffee stained thumb. And they might smile and
say, ‘that’s pretty good. Maybe I’ll read a little of this, instead of opening
my laptop right away.’
Amazon will get a little of your money, of course,
but they know nothing of the love of books. Write one. Read one. It’s never
been easier to get into print. Certainly it makes a huge difference if your
voice is clear - and distinctly yours. It takes some work and an eye to make your
book look like the kind of book human beings want to read.
Forget about Amazon. They are only trying to
publish money-makers.
To love books you don’t need to care about money
or fame or power. You only need to care about well-crafted books. The next book
you pick up and hold in your hands might be the one you’ve been looking for all
your life.
Or have a small affair with the book I wrote not
so long ago. Books are about love, not fidelity.
I once had this thing with a book in the Public
Library in Frisco, Colorado. I had no idea it would mean anything to me when I
pulled “The Dispossessed” by Ursula LeGuin off the shelf. She was just this
science fiction novel with some interesting ideas. I was passing through and
didn’t have a library card, so we could only meet near the stacks when the
library was open. After a few days, she stayed on the shelf. I left. But we’ll
always have Frisco.
Amazon is a whore. Love the words that speak to
your soul from the printed page.
Love books.
1 comment:
Sadly, not a lot of people care about books any more. A friend of my son (who is in college) told him that he'd never read a whole book.
Maybe books will be come an elitist thing, like education and rational thought. Check out the movie Idiocracy. It's less and less prophetic (and more are more real life) every time I watch it.
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