No reselling of my work, please

I wondered about the please, for I’m making a firm statement.

I’d like people to consider the second hand industry, and particuarly the re-selling of creative items. Currently, the creators receive nothing for re-sold goods – not even a sale figure, and that has an effect.

If a single copy of my book is read by a million people, my sales will show as one, and my profit will be my cut (after printing, carriage and any publishing costs) from that single copy. It won’t even show on Nielsen book data that a million people have read it. So if I approach a retailer or wholesaler to take on that title, they’re going to consider my book as low selling and won’t take the risk; the same is true if I approach an agent or marketeer or a venue to give a reading at. They look at figures, and there won’t be any, so again, I will not profit although all those people have from my work without giving me any recompense.

Even if the word of mouth of those million generated much buzz, I receive only pounds, or pence, for something enjoyed by the population of a large city.

Although that example may be extreme, I hope that the principle is clear. If your book is resold 5 times per copy, that’s quite a loss for the author and publisher – worse if you are both.

It is also worth considering this for music and video particularly.

If you translated it to theatre, it’s like 4 out of 5 people seeing your play without paying – and most of them not even filling up the auditorium so that you feel that you’ve a full and appreciative audience.

Independent publishing, along with any kind of creativity, is hard work that often isn’t renumerated as it should be, and finding your audience can take time. This is worsened when people pass on books, DVDs, music albums ‘for the benefit of the community’ or even worse, pretending that they’re being environmental, anticapitalist or even Christian.

It is angering when that item garners another cause – such as the church of England – money when you the creator have received none from it, and that they did nothing to procure or promote it. Someone brought it to them, they put it on a shelf, and let people find it, and yet it’s they who receive an income.

Did you know that the charity Oxfam destroys unsold books quite quickly? You may wish to reconsider donating to what is quite a hard headed business with charitable status, cutting its costs not only through unpaid workers but selling unpaid materials in its ubiquitous shops.

I also resent those who sell on works to a third party seller, thus creating a profit for themselves, and then one for the reseller.

I recently found an example where the 2nd copy of my first novel was in a large specialist second hand seller’s stock, on ebay – so it was discoverable by people anywhere in the world, and of course, me. Given the issues of the last post, it was galling that people were bidding on a book that is in print, and offering twice what it was sold for – and none of that coming to me.

Yo’d think that a personally signed such early copy to someone I knew might be a little more precious…. or you could wait and see if I became famous. The reseller showed the title page which states that the books cannot be resold without the author and publisher (ie my) written permission. I didn’t give it.

It also showed exactly who I’d sold it to.

I really think that re-selling needs an overhaul, because so much is lost by creators who often don’t receive much in the name of other people’s gain.

Video piracy is highly policed and yet other forms of money making from media without giving the originator a royalty are not.

Even famous authors and artists may not receive much and are probably not as rich as you think, so please do’t assume that they can afford it. Those of us still searching for a wider audience certainly can’t.

I don’t want to sound aggressive or offputting but I must state that I will be robust if I discover instances of this.

I ask people to think about allowing others (or yourself, if you’re a second hand seller) to reap what you didn’t sow, and let to sower and tender go without…especially for small, new and independent creators.

In fact, you’re not even reaping – you’re taking someone else’s cut, threshed corn and putting it on your market stall.

Why should your business run at the expense of others?

LIGHTNING SOURCE/INGRAM SPARKS AND UNFAIR CONTRACTS

Ingram call themselves a publishing solution, but they are more of a problem

 

I self published in 2016 and reluctantly, signed with Lightning Source International/Ingram as a worldwide distributor. I couldn’t find another option, and found that shops and libraries could be sniffy about self publishing, or just convulted in their procedures. Usually, they needed some kind of wholesaler to be able to purchase my novel, who asked me to jump through many hoops. For instance, Bertrams was one of two major British bookwholesalers (the other is Gardners). Despite living in the same city as Bertrams, and even being able and willing to go to them personally with my novel to inspect it, they wanted me to send one to them at my expense. They would decide whether to take it, and may not deign to tell me their answer; they would not send it back or even keep it in stock. Thus a precious copy may therefore be wasted, and as a selfpublisher on very very reduced circumstances, this mattered.

 

 

To avoid having to repeat such demeaning expense with every shop and supplier in the English speaking world, I signed with American based Ingram who would bypass the above and get my print on demand book into shops – virtual and actual – on wholesalers’ lists, and make my work purchasable by libraries. A major worldwide book distributor, their Ingram Sparks branch specialises in independent publishing. Their Lightning Source service, with printers across the West, is used by many self publishing platforms. The set up cost at the time was around £40 per file/title. You could pay extra to have your title whizzed round other trade papers – for instance, there’s a Christian one, which is relevant to my work.

 

 

I wasn’t impressed by my pre-customer dealings with LSI/IS, and I was alarmed at their terms. They were not individually negotiated – they were assumed. Remember this – it is vital. When I made an account, I did something that companies don’t expect: I wrote to them and said that if they accepted my account, they accepted certain terms from me. This missive and their acknowledgement was retained.

 

 

LSI/IS are renowned for their fiddly specifications. The files you upload to be printed by them are anal, to say the least. It is done via their computer system, which rejects you like the comedy Little Britain ‘computer says no’ and you don’t know or understand why. There’s little personal support and it’s expected that you pay for your own mistakes – if you’re allowed to make them. There’s an irony that LSI want high standards, and yet their own printing can fall beneath industry, and your, expectations.

 

A pile of my books on a table clearly showed that the lines on the spine varied. Especially as a new self published author, my book needs to be better than usual quality. But LSI/IS replied that the hairlines – which were not on my original files – were within their allowable error margin, and that they wouldn’t give me more than one free book to make up for it – and that took some arguing to receive.

 

 

Returns are a big part of retail: any bookseller will tell you that wandering the shop seeking out titles which haven’t sold to pop back to the publisher is a regular activity. So I knew to expect this, and that bookshops would require it. In fact. ‘sale or return’ is an unjust one way contract whereby retailers don’t pay unless a book sells, and in some circumstances, wish for the publisher to collect at their expense or risk destruction of the book.

 

 

This is terrible and shows that shops take none of the risk.

They risk their own existence by continuing this practice.

 

 

I knew that not offering a return option would disadvantage me, but LSI/IS takes no responsibilty for returns. You are asked to either state on your account: firm sale (ie no return option) or that you will receive and arrange them. This vast distributor does not get involved and will not guarantee the state of the books. Turning my home into a depot just wasn’t an option. I had no option save to choose ‘firm sale’ but tried to personally let companies know that I was open to negotiation. I looked into warehousing and found it to be not viable: the only platforms who handle returns want large sums and to design and semi publish, which I didn’t want.

 

 

Hence, LSI/IS put its clients at a major disadvantage, as I pointed out.

 

 

That year, my first Christmas as a published author, they failed to get my book on Waterstones’ website, the key British book retailer. Without a picture of the cover and a blurb, who would buy a book? A famous huge shop, Foyles, isn’t included in the scheme, so I had to grovel to them personally, and needed to approach several retailers more than once to have a proper listing. An internet search showed me on Amazon India, but not that of my own country or any other Western ones. Gardners and Bertrams showed me as a very vague and hard to find listing. Hence I did not enjoy Christmas retail sales and I asked LSI/IS to put this right and to offer me some goodwill – like putting my book on that Christian list for free.

 

 

LSI/IS take 90 days to compensate publishers, and they deduct their ever rising printing costs from your sale, which generates much paperwork and confusion.

 

 

I began to wonder if I could trust the remittance advice I was receiving: even after what I am about to describe, I was told that my book was seen in a local independent shop, and I wondered how they got hold of it? I know people who bought the book definitely via an LSI/IS channel, but I did not receive any remittance for it.

 

 

So where was my pay?

 

 

At least, the opportunity for the book to sell was there: it was out there still, for the public and professionals to buy.

 

 

Then, in late 2020, snotty automated emails started appearing, saying: we’ve changed our terms. Log in and agree or lose your account.

 

 

I wrote back to each auto reminder, saying that this is immoral, and that we needed to see the terms before logging in and agreeing each page. And isn’t there a problem with forcing people on an existing contract to change it, especially on pain of loss of service?!

 

 

I was ignored, but more automatic emails from them arrived.

 

This went on for some months. I told them that I required their legal department, but I was given infuriating replies. I had to fight to be given a full name, and their only comment on their location was ‘the States’ – not even which one, let alone an address.

 

 

Last January, I was given an automated email Final Demand, and eventual confirmation of my account’s closure and that my books were not displaying and available via Ingram – or were they? The books show even now on the likes of Amazon with vague messages.

 

 

I replied with a Final Demand and legal Notice of my own, which they tried to play down. I also tried to find a compromise. They didn’t.

 

 

I argued that:

a non-negotiated contract which is detrimental to the customer cannot stand, as per the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, section 5, and its successor, the Consumer Rights Act of 2015.

 

The UK consumer website Which states:

 

Consumers have the right to complain about unfair contract terms.

Examples of unfair contract terms 

The list of terms that are likely to be unfair includes the following examples:

• terms that allow the trader to unilaterally change the characteristics of the goods or services without good reason

• terms that allow the trader to keep an unreasonable amount of money as compensation if the consumer doesn’t keep to their side of the bargain

• terms that aim to take away the consumer’s legal rights

 

Anything signed under coercion, without meaningful choice, and with imbalance of power and rights is void. This is a basic universal legal concept.

 

Thus Ingram’s terms are not licit.

 

A contract that expects us to waive our moral and legal rights, and allows a company to close our account on a whim without notice is deeply immoral and illegal, and one lawyers and managers should be ashamed of – and will be held accountable for.

 

I made clear that they are liable for any losses and distress and inconvenience.

 

After finally obtaining a copy of the contract, I took issue with the separate Amazon one whose 16^th point stated they wanted an unviable cut – it meant that I would make a loss, and raising the price more was going to make it too high for people to buy.

 

This means supposedly that although I still have an online platform for Parallel Spirals (ironically still printed by LSI at the moment) that only personal customers can purchase it and that my sales don’t appear on Nielsen book data, which may affect algorithms and any commercial decisions to take copies of my book or invite me to author events.

Strangely enough, I now seek elsewhere.

I’ll tell you about my experiences of elsewhere in a future post.

 

In summary:

I don’t recommend Ingram Sparks to work with, obviously

 

These prevalent aggressive and faceless tone and the ex-parte contracts (ie one sided) are immoral and should not be accepted, in any circumstances.

 

It was highly disturbing to me that the website The Artist’s Bill of Rights, who had previously published my articles, refused this one and couldn’t see the problem in being forced to accept terms or lose your account, calling it ‘contentious’ and about ‘personal tastes’. Hence I have also withdrawn from them, feeling that they have diluted their remit. 

 

I would love for new platforms for print, buying and distribution to arise so that we don’t have to rely on such incompetent, though strangely shy bullies.

 

If anyone can recommend one, I’d be grateful to hear.

 

Elspeth Rushbrook is author of Parallel Spirals and The Jury In My Mind

Other self published authors’ wisdom

“We read to know we’re not alone… We write to know it…”

Yes I am quoting yours truly – though the first bit was from screenwriter William Nicholson.

It’s good to find other writers and those who also chose to self publish and give advice and support on that.

Joanne Phillips is generous with her advice, which you can read here. I hope you’ll also discover her books too.

She posted of another writer, Jan Ruth, who wrote a brilliant piece subverting the negative self publishing attitudes.

I’ll be sharing more of my own thoughts on this and the rest of the world soon

 

Greenbelt and me and that book of mine

Today is the official start of a festival known very much to a those of a certain Christian ilk. It’s been running over 40 years around various parts of England, sometimes in the grounds of stately homes, sometimes on a racecourse.

In the words of something very close to me –

“Greenbelt was devoid of the very things that put me off all other forms of Christian holiday. It had a firm focus on music and the experimental, was theologically liberal to the point of sometimes being shocking, and therefore attracted interesting people.”

Born at a similar time to the festival – which also began in the same county – I went to my first Greenbelt in 1990, in Northants, just as I was becoming old enough to be autonomous. It was a rebellious thing to do for someone of my background. My Dad’s response to my wish to go was “pass the vinegar”!

I came back shocked and recall writing to the festival’s chair and receiving a generic reply, including things that I hadn’t. Clearly many others had been unhappy too.

I can’t remember much about why – just that Greenbelt didn’t match my idea of Christianity. One reason that was its focus on social justice, not gospel spreading, and its toleration of issues like homosexuality. Ironies coming up…

Curiously one thing I do recall complaining about (for his book called “Cleaning the Bog and other spiritual gifts”) was a writer I embraced later on. I was reading the late Mike Yaconelli’s book “Dangerous Wonder” just last night. His talks involved the biggest queues of the festival, yet he was moved every year, and surprised, fearing that next year, they wouldn’t come. Perhaps I find his book a little juvenile now, with its stories of waterbombing and other pranks, but I love his spirit – real, passionate living, and a God who is much more into loving us than berating us and getting it right.

It took me 6 years to try Greenbelt again – now a postgraduate, a little broader of mind and less easily shocked. This time I had a little epiphany – one I couldn’t share with my housemate and her church, who’d tutted at me for going to GB – and I made some large and sudden lifestyle decisions because of that.

As a composing musician, the music at Greenbelt was important; a highlight was seeing Iona at the only full band gig of theirs I ever attended. But the book tent, people, ideas and new ways to worship were also of interest.

I went back the next year, but felt that the mud and the lank hair and skank feeling of no proper washing outdid the things I enjoyed. I vowed I would not camp again.

Then Greenbelt moved – further from me, but into new student halls of residences for the over 25s – happily an age I’d recently passed – and onto the tarmac of Cheltenham racecourse. I enjoyed discovering Cheltenham – my first spa town – and having a town close enough to take a break from the long weekend of festivalling, which can get quite intense and insular. Spiritually, it still felt appealed.  At last, Greenbelt and I were a best fit, although it was smaller and less atmospheric than its Northants days.

Now that Safe Space for LGB Christians felt different.

In 2007, I was living close enough to attend Greenbelt for a day. I started calling my spirituality Glastonbury rather than Canterbury. I was going to an alternative branch of the latter who didn’t approve of the former. I was no longer in the Christian pop music loop and found most solace in a tent of contemplation, and a spiritual advisor. I listened to Yaconelli’s son and felt that whilst the voice was recognisable, I wasn’t finding the ghost of the father through him. Nor did Mike’s own books work so well for me now.

I now cared very about social justice and I embraced the inclusion that Greenbelt showed, but it strangely felt that it, not I, was more conservative. It had taken steps back to towards it more evangelical roots while I’d pole vaulted from mine. We had passed each other like comets, riding together for a time, and veering into disparate directions.

I wasn’t sorry to leave and to explore Cheltenham. I felt that I’d be unlikely to go again – especially as Greenbelt left that site and reverted to camping.

So why is Greenbelt something I’m writing about now, except that it’s now happening?

Because those Cheltenham visits inspired scenes in my new novel, all about that Safe Space, those seminars where evangelical and liberal meet, where social justice and faith come together. It’s the final chapter.

I think it may be for me and Greenbelt. I approached them to share the novel – naturally – as I’d not only given them a few thousand words of space in it at the most crucial point, but its being all about the kind of things its attendees care about, such as modern church life and those that are a bit different.

But I found that the social justice they preach wasn’t being practised. The book tent has a contract to exclusively sell books on the site and it wants 50% of the cover price to sell yours – though it excludes self published ones when they’ve little space. I pointed out that most books don’t have that cut to spare and this causes the author and publisher – which are both me – who’s spend perhaps years crafting the book, to make a loss. I was asked to send a free copy to the team for a possible social media mention. A 40 year old festival commanding tens od thousands of £150 tickets each year, asking a new self published author in financial struggle to send a book for them to consider a tweet?

Hence I’m not at Boughton House near Kettering this weekend and may not be again.

But I do hope some festivallers – past and present – might enjoy reliving those Cheltenham years and joining in my fictional weekend at the pivotal point of other Elspeth’s journey.

You don’t know what I mean, and you’d like to?

Then go to http://www.parallel-spirals.webs.com.

More about the fairness of publishing will be appearing on this site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why I chose to self publish

I feel a little defensive – or that I at least need to explain. And some of me is cross about that, and that I have spent longer in awards entry covering letters and in interviews on why I’m self published than what the story is about.

But I wanted to tell you all, because it’s not only a choice, it’s a statement, the nearest that a pacifist gets to a battle cry.

Because I want to change things.

I want to bring Fair Trade to the book industry and subvert the current model.

Firstly – I self published because

I WANT TO TAKE PUBLISHING BACK INTO AUTHOR’S HANDS

And secondly, to show

WE DON’T NEED ANYONE’S PERMISSION TO PUBLISH

anymore than other businesses need permission to set up shop and start fulfilling their dreams.

Then there was those stats – two I put together:

8% of submissions to agents and publishers don’t get rejected and if you get through that tiny hole you keep 8% of the profits

So that means that not even JK Rowling is rolling in royalties as much as her gargantuan book success would suggest. (JK Rowling is someone I admire – for her journey and spirit as much as her writing).

And other famous names are needing other supporting work, or struggling.

And the less famous names aren’t doing so well at all. They probably have a day jobs or claim welfare.

And I felt: why is this accepted – that writers are poor?! And that someone else takes over 90% of the earnings for the work that they have by far put the most into?

I will write about shops in another post, but there are issues with the size of their slice – one that may mean I skip trying to sell that way.

But shops and libraries and wholesalers are stuffy about self pubbers.

We’re rejects. We’re not real, serious authors, they say. And even if you’re local, there’s no reason for us to take your book.

I heard an independent shop owner say that publically. Then he told his own story.

Analysis: he gave up on his own writing dream, and wants to squash other people’s.

He wants to pour out the tough love of failure and relinquishment that someone tipped over him. I really hope to see him in print one day. But I hope in the meantime, he stops crushing others who are already.

As I’ll share more later, sending away loyal customers who are also writers and small publishers is not how to continue their custom, and perhaps not their friends’ either. Most of us are in touch with others like us, and we share experiences.

So I’ve not yet allowed any shop or library the pleasure of turning me down. I am wondering if I shall. I’ll speak more about this and whether it’s worth getting an ISBN later.

So if you’re wondering – did I not get my fill of rejections when trying to get published?

Well, I got a few, but I never sent out my work that often. What I learned was that they can take ages, lose your work (Canongate – that was the first place I tried), and not feed back. So you don’t learn, and I also felt it was just a case of taste.

I’ve also had many affirming comments about my work, and I knew I could write, without exterior validation – that’s one of the themes and messages of the novel. So it’s often not a quality issue with agents and publishers, but a “dare I take a risk”. I’m learning that those risks are taken less, that feedback is minimal, and that agents and publishers no longer dig out diamonds. They want cut and sparking and ready to wear jewels – but you still have to fit their ring. After the honing and publishing I’d done, I didn’t want to do any more cutting for anyone’s else’s ring thank you.

Then there is the trust issue with agents and editors. I’d love to think that they all are sagacious and have my best interests at heart. But they don’t always know what’s best and they are often thinking of the market and what they can make money from.

So it means that the perceived market shapes what we can express and read.

And that is capitalism at its worst. And like much of capitalism, it’s based on fear, and conversely, seeing what caused the recessions – it’s risk adverse. It’s taking out all the adventure and putting money first.

It’s not just the publishers and agents – I think it’s ultimately the shops, who have shrunk their range with their bookseller’s duties and increasingly centralised.

So it isn’t just the self published who are having difficulty in being taken by shops (and libraries). It’s small and anything deemed specialist publishers, or even new titles from something established.

It’s also space based – shops and libraries don’t have infinite shelves, but the universe of virtual and home publishing does. Again, brings in capitalism’s old friend, competition, jostling for space and attention…something which self publishing can subvert into sharing space, not squeezing out those around you.

So might I, days on from my book becoming publically available, be enjoying greater sales and a sense of validity if I had found an agent?

For a dark moment, sitting in a conventional bookshop full of conventionally published titles, it was easy to feel “They’ve all got agents” – do I know that? And they’ve all got less than 10% of the cover price, and perhaps not a very big advance.

Perhaps they had to organise a launch themselves too. Marketing departments in publishing houses seem to be proportionally active to how well they predict you’ll do. When I learned that I as a new author was likely to get the marketing equivalent of the theatrical release of a foreign art house film, I felt all the more that I would stop sending out my work to agents. So it would be self fulfilling as to how well I did, and I’d be constricted by someone else’s judgment, and quickly given up on after a few tweets and half hearted leafleting shots at buyers, and then they’d move on.

If I was conventionally published, they’d have all the rights. They could decide when to take the book out of print and when to reduce to clear. They could decide the cover and put pressure on to change aspects which mattered to me, such as title, names, or cut important points. They could sell rights to a film company and I could easily lose my twin dream of writing the script – for my work was conceived for the screen, and is also adapted for the stage. And new authors are unlikely to stipulate that they must be involved in the lucrative movie. I’d be expected to sign away and stand back.

It may be like handing over your kids for someone else to bring up and then seeing them when they’d come of age, with hardly any visiting rights.

But as publisher, I can withhold rights and find someone that I want to work with, not for.

As it is, I feel I can say like a film director who also wrote, produced and perhaps starred:

A novel by Elspeth Rushbrook.

I designed the cover, using my own images. I typeset it all. I edited it. And it’s how I want it.

I find it liberating, not blamemaking that any faults are mine too, for I can change them; they are in my power, not someone else’s who imposed on me.

I don’t even know if I’d want an agent and publisher now. I enjoyed doing all this myself. I know I’ll want to do it for my other work.

It’s like being happy being single. If someone extra special appeared in your life, you may get married, but you’d have to be sure it was an enhancing partnership, and not a pairing for social expectation, or a dependency.

Really, I’m just moving with the wheel that’s already turning – the one that began with self publishing, then went to what we’d now call vanity – the author paid the publisher a fee – and now autonomous publishing is back. And I’m on top of the wheel, hoping that it is a revolution that works for all, wherever on the wheel you choose to ride.

 

 

 

 

 

Why I’m disillusioned with the publishing world

Although many publishers and agents claim to want to champion the work of writers (I am sure genuinely)…

We are told that 98% of agents reject submissions, and without one most big publishers will not look at your work.

Yet the publisher takes a bigger cut than the author, who gets only 8-10% of book sales, meaning that for 100,000 copies, (and all those years of soul inspired work), you’ll get minimum wage. (Agents take their commission out of the author’s royalties).

This is making me ask: why go that route?

I was against e-publishing and pro bookshops, but it occurs to me that it’s book chains who are damaging the book trade. Thay ask for a third to even half of the cover price, and they stock only what they consider will sell. I know from being a former bookseller that where once the shop staff had the power to order their own stock, this is moving more to head office level. Range is sacrificed to large numbers of sure sellers.

This does not help the independent bookshops who cannot command the same discounts. It also affects small publishers.

And this affects what is written, or allowed to be publicly expressed.

Agents and publishers tell you you need an agent because it gives the agents work and saves the publisher doing it. They tell you there’s no kudos in self publishing, calling it “vanity” to degrade it. Self publishing and e-publishing tell you you don’t need agents; they will remind you of the tiny cut you get, the rights and control you may lose, and how hard it is to be published.

But if 80-90% of submissions are on the slush pile of what agents consider no good, what do those writers do with our talent and hard work?

I think some writers feel that agents are intimidating: there’s a huge disparity of perceived power. You the writer must do exactly as they say and if they deign to choose you, you must remember what gold dust of a chance you’ve been given and be submissive. There’s the feeling that agents are handlers, in every sense of the word.

Some agents want to know if you submit elsewhere. Considering the odds against being chosen and that agents take months to reply – “of course” is the answer! Would I be expected to say if I had applied to other jobs? If I need a job then I will diligently apply for them until I am offered what I want. If I wish to date, I will put a profile on as many sites as a I wish and chat with as many individuals as I wish. It’s only when things became serious (ie an offer is made) that exclusivity and openness cuts in.

Yes, we can only have one agent (although some of us are artistic in multiple areas yet lots of agents can’t represent acting, scriptwriting, and literature). And we need to get it right. This is a mini marriage, the person that looks after our babies. Which parent would allow a nanny more power and say over their child than themselves? Would they not feel the right to ask questions and withdraw an application if they felt unhappy?

We should never be in any unequal relationship, feeling we are so lucky to have a chance that we have no rights and say.

Agents and publishers need authors to exist. But we can write without them. Just as employers need to market themselves to new employees, so agents need to let writers know why they should submit to them. Yes we as writers need to know what an agent seeks and we need to do our own wooing. But who dates, feeling it’s all about their profile and they should have no choosing power of their own? It’s equally about being sold to, not just selling yourself – and remember the phrase ‘the highest bidder’? That is not just in monetary terms, but care and empathy.

The culture of the agent (publisher/director/producer etc) having all the cards needs to change. With the internet, self publishing of all kinds (including music and video) is very easy and prominent, and understandably so.

It needs to be mutual from the start. And those who do not get chosen, rather than feeling crushed, should find other outlets. No one should be even thinking they have the right to destroy the career and confidence of another. Of course “you are no good” means “I think you are no good”. It is always a subjective statement, but hearing it once or twice can be enough to cause even suicidal feelings.

How many of us struggle to see the worth in a much lauded established piece of work? How many of us, as editors or producers,  would’ve passed over something that’s famous?

And how many famous people were constantly passed over?

The crushers need to be more aware and take responsibility for that. Of course, some who hear harsh words end up doing well and then publicly repeat these statements of woe, to the discomfort of those who said them.

(And in case you’re wondering, no-one’s said that to me, not that I would believe them anyway).