I’m temperamentally inclined to favour anything that casts aspersions on the value of social media. Also any article that can get Joe Konrath to make his charmless, boorishness more public than ever has to have something going for it.

Just such a piece appeared in the Guardian by Ewan Morrison a while back, entitled ‘Why social media isn’t the magic bullet for self-published authors’.

In a typically ill-mannered comment Konrath, Stephen Leather’s alter ego across the Atlantic, booms…

How many hours did (this article) take, Ewan? Hours you could have spent working on a book that you self-published, which then earns money indefinitely?

I’ve got a short story on Kindle which took me a few hours to write, which has earned me more than $10k. That seems like a much better use of a writer’s time than writing for the Guardian.

The idea that anyone would write for reasons other than money clearly baffles the man. Anyone with half a brain knows you don’t write for the Guardian for the cash, Joe. People do it because it’s an interesting, independent-minded place where ideas are shared, then torn apart by reams upon reams of frequently banal and self-serving comments like yours. OK? 

Hidden in the vitriol and insanity of the thread following the article is one very interesting and accurate point made by Ewan Morrison. It’s this…

I know many writers of literary fiction and in the attempt to survive as literary fiction shrinks within the mainstream market and cannot find a footing in the digital one they are either.

(a) turning themselves into genre writers to make money
(b) moving into other fields - theatre, film and TV
(c) looking for jobs

…Literary Fiction is being kept alive by the Prizes system.

Writers of Literary fiction are not making any money through self epubbing, which leads me to conclude that self epubbing is entirely based on niche markets within genre fiction.

Complete article here.

Credit: www.davidhewson.com