thank you for your comments. Just as I thought I gave up querying too early (after two months last year), I read this, and I feel better. Writing can be so disheartening, whether indie or not, but at least if I get thrown under the bus, it’s ME doing it.

But, yeah, I hope this doesn’t surprise anyone. Pubs have always been sneaky and they care only about themselves, not the author. They will do anything to your book to either make more money or to cover their butts. They don’t care if it infringes on an author’s creativity or their words. You hear all this crap about “Pubs care about books.” Not anymore. They USED to. Publishers and editors in trade USED to care about books but now it’s money. The old publishing days are gone. You don’t have those dedicated editors who fought for authors like back in the day. Many pubs now have so much turnover that an author’s book is doomed before publication. It used to be you were stuck with the editor who signed your book and loved it. Now? They offer you a contract if they feel it can make money, they don’t even have to like the books now. The writer could be a machine and they wouldn’t care if you end up spitting out the next Twilight.

So, for the newbies thinking this is like the 90s when pubs nurtured an author’s career, HA. Those days are gone. More than before you are nothing but a number and there is no more nurturing. If your book doesn’t make a certain amount of money quickly, you are either dropped or thrown at the bottom of the heap where you get no publicity, no bookstore/library placement and no push.

I do hope newbies who want to go into publishing read this but I find so many of them who wanna go trade still have those delusions of grandeur. They still look down on being indie and think if they just buckle down, be patient, and search for an agent for 10+ years, they will finally get a deal. It is a million times harder to get published by a big house today than even 5 years ago. And most likely you will be midlist or lower midlist and making no money.

It is infuriating how money has taken over publishing and ruined it. So of course, they care less about creativity than before and it’s sad. But again, this is business now. I advise any author to go indie. Even if you don’t have money there are ways. The trade-publishing machine is NOT your friend and censoring, whitewashing, etc. is only a tiny tip of the underhanded stuff they do.

As for censoring, I’ve never seen a reader who wants that. A story is a story. It’s FICTION and the author should be free to express themselves for the sake of the story.

Newbies better pay attention. Who knows how the trade-publishing world will look 5 years from now because it looks pathetic now, but if you want to be ahead of the curve and actually be able to control your own destiny (at least to a point) then trade publishing is not for you.