IWSG: Market Gratification Versus Story Integrity

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I guess you can say I have one writing insecurity today, more like a guilt: Last month, except for the IWSG blog hop, I did not post anything at A Far Out Fantastic Site. As I had said before, I've been trying to concentrate more on getting "Bad Apps", my book of short stories, done. But I have some good news: Because of the sacrifice of my weekly blog posts (which is only temporary), I have made further progress on "Bad Apps". But some sacrifices are not so good. One is when a publisher publishes work for monetary gain alone, which is what I find a lot of the publishing industry doing today. I'll talk about that more in my answer to the IWSG's optional question of the month. So, keep reading!

IWSG Question of the Month

And the optional question for August 6 is: What is the most unethical practice in the publishing industry? The most unethical practice in the publishing industry seems to be the using of author's fame and market demand instead of a story's integrity and craftsmanship as criteria for selecting stories for publication. Lately (about the past five years), I've been reading too many books, at least in the sci fi and horror genres, that have unlikeable and obscene characters that don't seem to develop the story. These characters are too often the protagonists, the characters we as readers are supposed to care about and feel for. Because too many of them have been repulsive in their actions and habits, I have no liking of or admiration for them. A lot of them are in books by big name authors in the speculative genres, some of who have written really good work in the past but then, fairly recently, started writing stories that were more about gratifying readers with shock and disgust. A good example of this is in a post of mine from a couple of years ago about Jeff VanderMeer's fiction.

Book-In-Progress

Putting my weekly blog posts on temporary hold has been helping me get closer to the completion of "Bad Apps". Right now, I'm in a later revision stage of the last story for the collection. In that stage, I'm working on making the characters and their interaction believable and making more vivid description. I also finished the rewrite of the ending to another story of mine that I had revised and completed some years back and that I’ve selected for this collection. The rewrite of this story went by quickly. I had originally thought I was going to have to change the whole ending, but it turned out that all I had to do was change a couple of lines. So, that helped! Also, since the last IWSG, I've been planning out the book's blurb.

After I finish revising this last story, I'll have the introduction to write, the formatting to do and then get at least a mock cover made for the beta version. I'm hoping I can do a beta release in the next couple of months. Anyone who would like to be a beta reader for "Bad Apps", let me know in the comments box below. You'll find more details about volunteering as a beta reader for "Bad Apps" here. 

Have you noticed any decline in the quality of books published by the major publishers? Does a beta read of "Bad Apps" interest you? Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts:  Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Natalie Aguirre, Sarah - The Faux Fountain Pen, and Olga Godim! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels! 

Until next time . . .