In short, they're selling courses teaching others how to succeed as an author. And while I'm all for structured education and paying people what they're worth, a lot of the time these things feel like they aren't worth the cost... especially when there are ways you can get the information free-of-charge from authors who don't want to put a paywall on what you want to know.
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| Just push... the door is open. |
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Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!
Too Many Authors Are Aping Capitalism's Playbook
All right, at the risk of the Soviet national anthem playing while I write this, the strategy used by capitalists and corporations (there's barely a functional difference, but I list them both for completion's sake) to make money is RARELY to invent new things, improve new services, or to actually be competitive. Instead, these monied interests find something that is either a public necessity (water, land, healthcare, food, housing, etc.) and they take control of it. They then force you to pay for access to it, while keeping control and ownership of it so they can make you pay them as much money as possible until you die.
If you've been on the Internet for any length of time, then you watched this happen with paywalls. Once upon a time you could just read the news, play games, and consume content all across the Internet... but then more and more sites started putting up paywalls so that only people who forked over a membership fee could actually access the services, or information. Hell, it's also happening with "free" websites like YouTube, and several social media sites where you can pay a fee for a kind of VIP package.
So what does this have to do with writers? Well, it seems that a LOT of us aren't actually trying to make a living selling copies of our books... instead, we're trying to make a living selling people who aren't writers the tools to publish and market their own books. And we're doing it in the form of online courses that can run for hundreds of dollars.
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| And holy crap is this becoming an issue. |
Now, the idea of this is fairly simple. An author will put together a series of videos that act as a kind of digital lecture, which will be hosted somewhere that the prospective students can then pay money to access. The idea is that you are getting the inside scoop on publishing and writing from people who have been in the trenches, and who can tell you how you can become a writer just like they did. While this isn't new (there are countless books that claim to be able to make you a bestseller, a business tycoon, etc.), it has become something of an issue for a few reasons.
I'd argue that the first reason is because this information is often (though not always) presented as some kind of secret knowledge that will put one on the fast track to becoming a successful author. That it's marketing using the glitz of a get-rich-quick scheme, which is something that has become all too pervasive in the writing world. What makes you successful is rarely the knowledge, but a network of connections and a proven track record; and those aren't what you're paying for.
Secondly, though, is that the information being paywalled isn't secret. It is all over the Internet, and there are authors out there who are literally giving away the techniques to get published, find an agent, market your book, and even down to the nitty gritty where they'll walk you through building an Amazon ad campaign that will actually get noticed (something that's pretty damn valuable). Hell, I make a show that does this on the Azukail Games YouTube channel titled Tabletop Mercenary, and author Alice Liddell has an entire YouTube channel stuffed with topics titled Alice The Author. If you go watch our videos, you'll save yourself a cool C-note... and you can leave questions in the comments if we don't answer everything you need to know!
This whole trend first came to my attention over a year ago when I was talking with PatZi, the host of the YouTube channel (and former radio show) Joy On Paper (which you should go follow if you haven't yet). At the time I figured that every author with any kind of name recognition putting together a course for prospective writers was just another part of the cycle... but it hasn't gone away.
Now, I'm not here to yuck anyone's yum. If you feel that this is a fair deal, and that you want to hear what a particular writer has to say, that's your decision to make. However, I've been doing this for a pretty long time now, and I've met a lot of folks doing it longer than I have. The information being paywalled is absolutely out there for free, and you could probably find it in less than 20 minutes of searching. I am of the opinion that people who want to write better books, or who want to learn how to actually sell their books once they've released them, will be far better served by using the resources they already have at their fingertips. Also, join communities of writers. Social media platforms are jammed with them, and we are all more than happy to share our experienced and tips with folks.
Most of us actually want to sell copies of our books. Information, though, that we generally give out free of charge because we understand that creating community means you help others out where you can.
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That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!
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