Writing and Publishing Fiction

The lawgiver is clear. For the fiction writer, there are no publishing shortcuts, only the slow, hard route through a reputable publishing house. The lawgiver issued down eleven seven publishing commandments, which a writer must follow:

1. Just as a manufacturer designs a product for a profitable target market before a single item is produced, the fiction writer must write for readers that will buy a publisher's books. Who will read your fiction? Will you write for the literary class or the masses? Will you write speculative fiction about an upside down world where man rules ape or a tale of horror about a talking man that preys on ape? Will you write a romantic tragedy of two star-crossed lovers, one gorilla and the other, chimpanzee?

As Minister of Science and Defender of the Faith, I exhort you to heed the Lawgiver and follow the traditional, conventional path to publishing. Preserve a way of life that has served us well for hundreds of years. Do not listen to that self-publisher, William Blake. The self-publisher should be shunned and driven out, if not destroyed outright. Beware the beastly self-publisher, for they are the Print-on-Demand publisher's pawn.