but, by God, I am anti-gatekeeper.
I can remember being a teenager and being told that I would need to write things that the publishers wanted to sell. I understood that — to some extent. I understood that it would mean lying. I understood that it would mean not digging for the deeper truths. I understood that it would mean kissing the lily-livered asses of a bunch of damned Yankees (as distinct from just plain “Yankee”) elitist rich liberals who had never written an actual sentence of their own. And I hated that.
Understand this — the publishing industry in the United States consists of an incestuous group of NYC-born and bred “editors” who barely speak English. It consists of a bunch of people who went to the “right” schools. Who made friends with the “right” people. Who were born in (or fucked their way into) the “right” beds. None of them have a modicum of intellect. I honestly doubt that the vast majority of them could pass the FLE (Functional Literacy Exam). Instead, they’re related, by sex (oral, anal, or vaginal) to the “right” people. They have the “right” pedigrees. They went to the “right” schools. Most of them have never set foot outside the protective confines of upper-class New England. Most of them have never worked an honest job a day in their lives. Most of them couldn’t tell you which foot pedal was the breaking pedal and which was the bleedin’ accelerator, let alone change their oil own or light bulbs. These are the kind of people who, once society shits itself, will be the first to die because they’re too damned stupid to live.
And yet, they’re the ones we have allowed to decide who will be published and who will die unknown.
At least, until indie-publishing became a worthy challenge. And they hate it when someone without their Papal imprimatur makes a fortune without having kissed their feet and arses. It drives them up a wall they they rejected authors like J.K. Rowling and yet — love her or loathe her — she sits upon a fortune not granted by these limousine liberals. They hate it every time an indie author makes their way to the top of the Amazon best seller list. How dare we indie authors not seek their blessing upon our work? How dare anyone write a story that doesn’t adhere to their orthodoxy? How dare we tell them “let the readers decide?”
Such blasphemy! After all, weren’t they born in the skyscrapers of NYC to divine the fate of all authors? By their white skin and their quasi-Marxist credo (which, of course, leaves them as the elite destined to rule over all mankind), they were chosen to determine who shall be published and who shall languish in oblivion. How dare indies seek to publish without their blessing!
Well, begging my mother’s pardon: fuck them right into hell itself.
I don’t need some nampy-pampy, ignorant, illiterate, innumerate, lily-white, incestuous limousine liberal born and raised in the most inbred, ignorant-ass city on Earth to tell me whether my writing is good or not. Most of those little shits couldn’t hack in the real world if Jesus Christ Himself helped them. They’re nothing but Marxian-wannabe holdovers from a non-competitive era who think that just because their great-great-grandfathers were smart, they suddenly deserve the right to decide who gets published and who doesn’t. Most of them have never read a book in their lives. They couldn’t tell you how to turn on a computer, let alone write a modern novel.
And yet, they think that they, in their shallow, ignorant, isolated Ivory Towers in a single city upon this world, they think that they can speak for the readers of Planet Earth?
Fuck them and the horse they allegedly rode in on! Why should a handful of rich, illiterate, ignorant-ass, pasty-white Yankees decide the books of the world? They’ve never so much as ridden coach in an airplane, let alone traveled and spoken with the common man anywhere. They couldn’t tell you how different the lives of a NYC cop versus a Wall Street exec are, let alone the difference between an Australian aborigine and an Afrikaner. Shit, these inbred ingrates probably can’t tell the difference between modern France and modern Britain. And we’re supposed to sit back and let them decide which books get published and which don’t?
To hell with them. Let them die out like the dinosaurs of old after the KT impact. Let them be forced to compete with publishers and labels not run by one of their cousins. Let them have to deal with actual readers and actual competition.
And when they can’t…when they’re dying of starvation on the streets of NYC…remember to spit on them and tell them to go to hell. Because their royal imprimatur doesn’t mean a book is worth reading. All it means is that the book is considered good by a bunch of provincial, inbred, ignorant-ass, lily-white Yankees who think that they’re helping the “underclass” by condescending to them.
Fuck ’em. Let the readers decide.
— G.K. Masterson
