The New York Times has odd ideas about indie publishing

While getting some wine from the cellar, I slipped and sprained my ankle (luckily before I had gotten the wine or there would have been a mess as well). Yeah, in the real world ankles aren’t sprained while being chased by Daleks but while getting wine from the cellar. I immediately put an elastic bandage on, though the ankle is still swollen. My shoulder has started to hurt as well, I probably sprained a muscle while trying to catch my fall. I hope if I let the foot rest tonight, it will be better tomorrow. I managed to hurt my ischiatic nerve last year and I could really live without being reduced to a limping invalid for weeks again.

On to more interesting things (because I don’t think you came here to hear about my ankle): The New York Times has an article about the rise of indie publishing. I guess if the New York Times runs an article about it, it’s officially a trend. Found via Jay Lake.

Though the article is still dripping with condescension. So his book has no mainstream appeal because it does not involve teenage vampire sex and Knight Templars? Twilight and The DaVinci Code are not the only commercially successful books out there, you know. Never mind that the only sex scene in Twilight is a fade-to-black in the last book and that the Knight Templars aren’t all that relevant to The DaVinci Code judging by the movie. His book, alas, won’t be a good fit for a commercial publisher, because it’s about Jews and basketball and bumbling fascists? I guess that’s news to Michael Chabon who writes about Jewish themes and has written about sports (okay, so it was baseball, but who cares?) at least once and is not just commercially published but successful.

And then his main problem seems to be that he may have to fly to the East Coast for readings? Why not hold readings right where he his? Unless he lives in the Alaskan wilderness, there are likely to be bookstores and libraries in a 100 kilometer radius. And the drawback is that he and his book won’t appear on The View or even The Talk (whatever programs that may be) – yeah, because novelists below the top bestselling threshold so often appear on TV. Especially in the US, which does not have literary programming of the type regularly found in Germany.

Meanwhile, as an antidote to the condescending New York Times article, here are two lovely posts about fostering creativity and making it pay from Justine Musk’s wonderful blog Tribal Writer: How to develop a creative practice and The writer as creative entrepreneur.