My last post was timed perfectly to coincide with the recent news that Authonomy.com, a site owned and operated by HarperCollins as a means to encourage community between aspiring authors (and to act as a means to expose themselves to those authors without the need to rely so heavily on literary agents, which is something more and more people are finding an impasse these days due to the "gatekeeper" phenomenon I mentioned last entry), is to close its metaphorical doors on the 30th of September this year.
It's a pity; I joined Authonomy many months ago, but hadn't found myself in a position to submit anything up till now (I'd like to blame a lack of time and energy for the process for this, as trying to gain a foothold in graphic design in a place like New Zealand, where the population and therefore the opportunities are rather limited [those gatekeepers again...] plus work as a neonatal intensive care nurse are both time-consuming and require a lot of physical and mental investment...but it's at least as much to do with my fear that my work just isn't good enough, and that hurdle is a far greater one to clear), and now I've missed the boat. As a means of access to opportunities for both HarperCollins and aspiring authors, Authonomy is an excellent idea - a community site actively run and engaged with by a publishing company in an attempt to overcome the roadblocks and naysayers that would otherwise keep good creative mind and skills shut away from the world seems perfect.
The trouble is, though, that as HarperCollins stated in their blog, over time community engagement has waned and the number of new titles that began as uploads to the Authonomy site and have become real-life books has decreased along with that. HarperCollins clearly isn't finding the community is fostering the opportunities it desires, and as any well-designed and well-helmed business knows, if needs aren't being met by an aspect of the business model but resources are still being invested into it, then it really is throwing good money after bad to keep it going. I'd like to assign human emotions to the corporate entity that is HarperCollins and imagine it actually doesn't like the idea of cutting Authonomy off - I truly believe it doesn't. But alas, even the most sentimental company has to be somewhat willing to dock useless appendages before they turn septic and start slowly poisoning everything else.
So where are the authors going? Or where are they not appearing from? Where's the new work? There's no way people just aren't writing, not telling stories, not putting fingers on keyboards and pens on paper. Stories are definitely being told. I can't help wondering that it might just be that the sheer amount of energy that seeking acceptance from a publishing company takes, as well as the overwhelming reality that most people will not be published by a reputable publishing house regardless of how well-written their story is (for reasons like demographic appeal, for instance; remember the Harry Potter reference I made last time? If the story is true it literally took a child saying they wanted it published for the book to be published, but prior to that it was assessed as not being appropriate for the target market. Unbelievable, right? I think this is the fourth or fifth reference I've made to the gatekeeper phenomenon in this entry so far), is working against the awesome efforts HarperCollins went to in seeking the establishment of a community-focused method of finding new material and new content creators, and is certainly working against those publishing companies who deem themselves more exclusive and don't have such initiatives on the go. Put it this way: sure, receiving a "thanks, but no thanks" in isolation isn't necessarily too hard to deal with, but in the face of rejection after rejection after rejection, not seeking that rejection (because that's what it starts boiling down to) is the far more sensible option.
And you know what doesn't offer only the discouragement of countless rejection letters? Self-publishing. There are drawbacks, as I touched upon last entry. There are the attitudes many people have regarding it, there are the limitations of exposure, there are the risks that a story that could be great if just given the right critique from industry experts will be sent out into the world in good form instead, and there are the tribulations of design (which is where someone such as myself would come in, just as a suggestion...), among many other things to consider when making the decision whether to self-publish or not - but in the end, the idea of feeling as though one has made a contribution to collective culture and the idea that one is at least marginally successful creatively are far more positive for a great many people. It's totally understandable.
For a moment there I was thinking to myself "yes, but if everyone self-publishes, then the checks and balances won't be in place. Horrific grammar and bad writing will proliferate. Surely society will collapse!" - and then I remembered that people communicate horrifically all the time, and bad writing already proliferates even with the current system in situ. And who's to say that writing a story and having it published need be a mark of brilliance? Nobody takes the attitude that someone who can paint a mediocre picture is somehow marring art; the entire point is that sometimes art is appealing, and sometimes it isn't, and whether it is or isn't depends on who views it and what they both give to and take from it. Maybe writing is the same, or it could be.
At any rate, the main point here is that I'm disappointed that Authonomy is shutting down, and I hadn't predicted it - but that I'm not surprised about it. It makes sense. Being the determining factor in one's own success is of huge appeal to people, and the undeniable truth is that by engaging with someone (or something, like a publishing house) who is 99.99% certain to tell you what you're doing or have done is not good enough, success is turned from attainable to unachievable. Success is a totally subjective thing, of course - one person's success may be selling 10,000,000 copies of their work, while another person's success may be just seeing a bound copy of the work they poured their heart and soul into while working crappy hours with high stress just to make ends meet. Who doesn't want success in life? Who wants to be told "no" time and again? Nobody. Kids hate being told no, and as it turns out so do adults, even if they understand it far better than they would have growing up. And rather than putting themselves out there to be told no - even if they might actually be told yes - they seek yes.
It's sad that the yes that Authonomy might have led to for a lot more people is being turned into a this site no longer exists. But that's what happens when people don't want to read another no. I'm absolutely assuming Authonomy is a casualty of the leap many people have taken into self-publishing, of course, and that may not be the entirety of the story - but it's a definite factor. If you seek yes and have a way to find it, that's the way you're likely to go, even if your yes is a lot smaller than that of a publishing company. A little yes is a great deal more success than none at all, isn't it?
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