Last week, my indie author buddy Sheldon Gleisser and I finally got around to “Jennifer’s Body”. There is a scene (spoilers) where Adam Brody, who seems to be making a career of deal-with-the-devil guys, explains to Megan Fox why they’re about sacrifice her to Satan.

“Do you know how hard it is to be a indie band nowadays?” he says. “There’s a million of us and we’re all so cute.”

Then he gets all stabby.

As I watched this scene, I pencilled out the word “band” and plugged in “author”. The line scanned as equally disheartening, and just as likely to inspire tragic hijinks.

I have no idea how many authors are out there; an accurate count would require setting some hard and fast criteria that might only cause hard feelings. It is safe to say that there are millions.

There used to be a dream publishing industry scenario where you finish your manuscript, submit it to a publisher who gives you the standard “rich & famous” contract, and you go on a world book tour to have adventures. It was a time when the novelist would be the last guest on Johnny Carson and get to sit at the end of the couch with the celebrities. The latest best-seller would be touted in commercials on radio & TV.

That was a one in a million shot at the best of times. These ain’t the best of times.

Every author, Big Six Publisher or not, is expected to do their own publicity. Reviews are clawed out of the living rock of social media with bloody hands, one or two at a time. Sales at best are sporadic except for what seems to be the top one per cent.

As the Big Six pull back the number of releases, the number of aspiring authors increases. People of all descriptions, their hearts filled with hope if not structure & grammar, choose to find an alternate route to Rich & Famous.

This is where the true horror of this scenario reveals itself. As indie authors’ numbers increase, their predators follow suit. A small proportion pretend to help them become published: vanity presses, editing services, book covers for $25. A bigger chunk of the exploiters go after the writer once the book is done: promotion groups, publicists, reviews for sale, book websites.

On the web you are promised to have your book put in front of 25,000 pairs of eyes, though no-one states how many of those belong to other desperate & destitute authors that might trade their mothers for a sale and a review on Goodreads.

As of yet, there are no mother-trade sites on the web, but that says nothing for the future. In a cynical paraphrase of Ratatouille’s Gusteau “anyone can be an author, if you put cash on the barrel head”. Indie author services have replaced the lottery as the primary form of taxation of hopeful people that can’t do math.

I have no solution, just a warning. You can’t win if you don’t buy a ticket, but you can’t eat if you buy ten-thousand.

Weirdmaste.