Hello everyone, I just thought of a blog post topic that might belong on my mad blog. In fact, I think I will put it on the mad blog soon. But it is about writing and publishing. And for some reason, while thinking about Substack a few minutes ago, I happened upon this topic that I find myself absolutely suddenly outraged about. I mean I did not even know that this was percolating in my mind, but here it is.
Recently I saw a video where someone was questioning the expectation for writers to have "platforms," or rather, supply all the readers themselves before an agent and publisher accept them. I also questioned this five years ago when it became a thing, and I was suggesting that the word "platform's" meaning had sneakily changed. So anyway, finally some other people are seeing something sketchy about it, and I do agree.
But there is something else that I find even more outrageous, and for some reason, I just now saw it so clearly in my mind after not really realizing how offended I am by this other thing.
So here it is... email lists. This popular recent writing advice, or really just the stated news fact that you might not be able to reach anyone without your own email list, is another mandate from that same time where some people became popular and the experts began telling all of us failure people to be more like them, at least on the surface. So what is offensive about being told to have an email list?
Well, the reason that email lists started to seem necessary is because the much more successful social media platforms were suddenly transformed from one of the best things that ever happened to us into a horrible thieving counter-monetized social life-stealing swindle. And the same people who ruined facebook on purpose were the ones saying to now invest in email lists.
The overt bullying from political people to their own friends after thirty years in which they too did not succeed in helping immigrants is what I am talking about. And to just say, well now you have to have an email list, is simply part of that hypocrisy. Because at one point, there was a blessing that we had called social media, which included opportunities to reach people. But up and ups and low down dirties all decided to ruin it for us.
It is a fact, and people made their choice, and it can't be undone in order to hide it. Does it tarnish anyone's success? Not necessarily. But not necessarily not, either. Because wow, there were winners and losers, and did all the losers deserve it? Probably not. So what about the winners? Before I get on that tangent, I have one more thing to say about email lists and platforms. The people who chase those things that seem to work and prescribe them to the rest of us who seem so inferior actually probably aren't seeing the real keys to success. The real things that people who succeed on those levels do are likely to start years before and be very integrated in their lives as organic decisions that aren't that different from anyone who is doing what they really care about. And most writers do care and have something to say. I mean, sure, why not list the things that are working, why not give people the opportunity for relevant education, why not point out the clues that seem to suddenly work. And yet, "you're going to need an email list because we are ruining this platform that we also told you to have," is nothing other than total bullcrap. Do you think that is sour grapes from me? Or is it the feces that you smeared all over the church of better writers.
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