A Hierarchy of Authors (Overview)
A Hierarchy of Authors examines the scope of writing success, viewed as a career ladder that most writers will never climb.
(It might be slightly less depressing if you read the parts in reverse order.)
- The Canon - "Their work is so subtle and complex that if you don't appreciate it, it's your fault."
- The Blockbuster - "The quality of their novels may fade over the years, but with a yard of shelf space in every bookstore in the Western world, who cares?"
- The Bestseller - "They've reached the point where it takes a streak of four utterly shit novels for readers to start losing interest."
- The Breakout - "They make it look all too easy, primarily because the author has no fscking idea how it happened."
- The Debut - "The possibility of an undiscovered Faulkner, Joyce, Chandler, Asimov, and the subsequent opportunity to boast about reading them."
- The Midlist - "Where most published authors remain until their careers quietly die."
- The Indie - "There are two kinds of independently published author: those on the way up, and those on the way down."
- The Short - "The author of seven hundred short stories, eighty of which have been published in such luminous periodicals as Skokie, Illinois After Dark."
- The Vain - "The Vain decide to stick it to the man, and get their message out the old fashioned way - by getting scammed."
- The Slushdweller - "The Slushdweller lives in a hovel made of rejection slips, glued with the salivations of their own umbrage."
- The Bottom Drawer - "They hope their failing is some deficiency of skill, because they understand that their deficiency of talent is pretty permanent."
- The Unfinished - "The Unfinished sometimes get pretty good at beginnings, but their endings suck - mainly because the end comes when the middle runs out of steam."
- The Wannabe - "They feed the fantasies that lead others into the perpetual disappointment of a lifetime spent writing badly."
