What a Rip Off

     Since last Saturday and over a month ago, in fact, I've been pimping this listing in PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY and Booklife. I found just yesterday that the $149 promo package DOESN'T include mentions in either PW's Facebook or Twitter accounts, even though an occasional shoutout would've cost them jack shit. Thus far, the alleged exposure that my novel TATTERDEMALION's received had translated into ONE sale for the title listed. And that's after I'd posted the permalink on the 50+ writer's groups to which I belong.
     Then tonight, as I'm finishing up tomorrow's article, I see a new email. It's an exciting new "offer" from the same Publisher's Weekly that would've gladly extracted nearly $150 from my depleted bank account if they hadn't fucked me the first time last September.
     I'll give you the full letter below and the numbers attached to it:

     "Dear Robert,

     Thank you for joining PW Select last month and being a new member of Booklife and PW.
     PW and Booklife are offering something new to its members that is very special and that we started this year at a discounted rate. We will be offering a Q/A with selected authors and have a limited amount of spots each month.
     We have some special rates that we are running for this feature. The way it works is that we get you in direct contact for a short Q/A with our editorial staff and then they profile you in both the print and in digital version of PW’s magazine in the next available issue on 3/9/20. It takes about 4-6 weeks in advance to reserve these positions because they are a bit more impactful then running an ad in our magazine and you do work with our editorial staff. I have attached a PDF with more details and pricing below
     These are the rates for each size classification

     Full Page $2500
     2/3 page $2000
     Half page $1500
     Quarter Page $1200"

My response was as follows:

---

     Wow! I can get PW to interview me and at the low, LOW rate of $2500?! Where do I sign up?
     Listen, pal, you fucked up on my only submission through Book Life. You rudely dismissed and rejected my novel, Tatterdemalion, for a review, then, to add insult to injury, sent three rejection letters in a row within 11 minutes. Not one, not two, THREE. So I let you guys know how I felt about that since that's happened to me with countless literary agencies who also weren't content with rejecting my novels just once.
     In an effort to put oil on the water, one of your people offered me for free the $149 promo package that seems to include everything EXCEPT mentions on PW's Twitter and Facebook feeds. You know, where it REALLY would've counted. Not so, I was told, and now have my book infrequently mentioned on Booklife's Twitter account that actually has several hundred fewer followers than my main Twitter account. Their Facebook page has only a few hundred more likes than my author page and I have over 3200 friends to their 2000+ likes. In other words, my reach is larger than theirs.
     I know you guys are running a corporation and a corporation's sole reason for existence is in making money. So while I don't have any delusions that a letter from an unknown novelist will result in any dramatic paradigm shift, I nonetheless have to get this off my chest:
     Between guys like you, Boobbub. Kirkus and a handful of other more or less official power brokers and gatekeepers, you make a handsome living off under-represented and underserved authors like me. You prey on the desperation of people understandably dying to break into a business that seems more and more tilted toward the Kool Kids in the Klubhouse, the Big Club that George Carlin told us they don't want us in. We get rebuffed with flunky-generated form letters from the literary agencies we're told we need to see first before daring to approach publishers with our properties.
     Then the agencies start slamming their doors in our faces, huffing and sniffing that they're closed to submissions or those that aren't by "invitation or referral only." You want face time with an agent? Just buy a round trip ticket to the London or Frankfurt Book Fairs and pay handsomely for the privilege of elevator-pitching your property to an agent in some ridiculous, sped-up literary speed dating scam.
     Oh, you can't afford to have face time with us, peasants? Sucks to be you, you know, since you're forbidden from writing to or calling us.
     And in the act of doing this, they're forgetting the collusive deal struck about four decades ago between literary agencies and publishers who'd decided they didn't feel like wading through the "slush pile", as they derisively refer to our work, and decided to use literary agencies as an unpaid weeding out process. In exchange, they offered them the chance to exclusively represent authors for whatever percentage they could agree on and they promised not to even look at the work of unrepresented authors.
     In other words, as scummy and collusive as the agreement was (Frankly, I'm surprised every day that it isn't enforceable under the RICO racketeering statutes), part of the idea was to continue giving authors an outlet for their work. Outlets that are now shrinking faster than billabongs in fire-scorched Australia. And they don't care.
     And the agents who don't tell us they're closed to submissions are telling us, instead, that it would help if you happen to have a track record with a Big Five publisher. It would greatly enhance your chances of your work floating to the top of the slush pile. In other words, the people we're told we need to have before we secure a publishing contract are now telling us we need a publishing contract before we can secure one of them.
     Then, just beyond this ludicrous hamster wheel, comes people like you, dangling vague promises of exposure, sales and what have you if you but hand us over $2500 that no one I personally know has to spare for the privilege of being interviewed by us.
     Well, let me tell you- My free $149 listing that dropped last Saturday has resulted in one, ONE sale of the title listed. The only good thing I can say about this experience is that it was given to me and that I didn't have to pay a penny for it (Not that I would have). Because the executives running your outfit know and count on authors like me being so desperate to break the stasis that seems put in place for each of us personally that we'll pay any amount of money to that end.
     Even if we don't have it. As long as the check or the credit card number clears, who gives a fuck if you can afford it?
     Well, count me as a hard pass, pal. I'm having a hard enough time just keeping the lights on and the rent paid without my filling your bulging, bottomless pockets.

     Robert Crawford