Last night I watched the Netflix film The Woman in the Window with Amy Adams as a pill-popping, wine-drinking agoraphobic female psychologist who lives alone in a big house in Manhattan, except for a tenant who rents the basement apartment from her. The story revolves around her trying to get the police, her tenant, and a few others to believe that she has witnessed a murder in the apartment building across the way from hers. It's based on the book of the same name by A.J. Finn (pseudonym for Daniel Mallory). I haven't read the book, so I cannot comment on whether the film remained completely true to the book, or whether the film is better than the book, or vice versa.
As I usually do once I finish a book or a movie (or both), I googled them to read more about them and the author. One thing led to another, and I came upon an excellent article in The New Yorker (A Suspense Novelist’s Trail of Deceptions | The New Yorker) about the author (book editor turned novelist) and his climb to the top of the publishing world. His debut novel, which was published in 2018, is The Woman in the Window, and it made him a millionaire. So far, so good, I thought. Kudos to those debut novelists whose books become best-sellers. It's the hope and dream of most novelists, however, most of them never realize the dream. Very few novelists write best-sellers. That's a statistical fact.
But as I read further, I realized that for this author, the end justified the means. He used every means possible to get to the top, to become famous, to become a best-selling author. He essentially lied his way to the top and used the people he needed to use to get there. He lied about being sick, about family members being sick/dead, about his education/degrees, and his work experience. He made himself out to be much more important than he was. Some of you may be shrugging your shoulders saying, so what, many people do that. If you read the article, you'll realize that most people don't do what he did, and if they did, we'd be living in a very difficult world where you wouldn't be able to trust anyone, essentially. I don't know why he did what he did, or if he even understands that what he did hurt people, but if he does, he knows that what he did was morally questionable and wrong. When confronted, he ended up blaming some of his behavior on being bipolar. I don't know enough about bipolar disorder to comment on it one way or another, so I leave that to the experts. I do know something about narcissistic personality disorder, and this type of behavior is not uncommon in those who have that disorder. So I don't know. What I do know is that it struck me while reading the article how little the publishing world polices or punishes their own. And when their mistakes catch up with them, they go the 'no comment' route in order to avoid the bad publicity and embarrassment.
It also struck me that the publishing world rewards their own. Editors know other editors and suggest books for perusal and publication. They take care of their own. It's who you know that moves you ahead. A.J. Finn the editor turned novelist may have gotten ahead just fine without all the lying; there were plenty of people willing to move mountains for him. The publishing world is another elitist profession that protects its elitism by keeping the common people--average ordinary authors--at bay. Traditional publishers do not accept manuscripts directly from authors; most go through literary agents who wield a lot of power in terms of acceptance/rejection of manuscripts. They work together with publishers to keep out the 'riff-raff'. It is strange to realize that most authors will never enjoy what A.J. Finn enjoyed--editors willing to promote his book. Most authors who behave honestly and who follow the traditional rules of publishing will never see their book published by a traditional publisher.
This is why I am all for the rise of independent publishers and self-publishing, at the expense of traditional publishers. Yes, the market is now flooded with sub-optimal books by first-time self-published authors who think they are great authors, but eventually they find out that they are not, because no matter what they do, their books don't sell. It's hard to be a little fish in a huge ocean. Absolutely no one will notice you. And that is the current state of affairs for most self-published authors. But there is also a lot of poor writing published by traditional publishers; many books promoted by traditional publishers are just garbage. The same holds true for vanity publishers, who promise first-time authors the moon--a best-selling novel and a film script based on their books. Vanity publishers have no qualms about taking 20,000 dollars from authors to 'help them publish their books, to distribute them globally, and to initially promote them on social media'. These are all activities that the author can do himself or herself for less than 50 dollars on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP); one need only use KDP to self-publish a book, arrange for global distribution, and sell the book on Amazon. I wrote a post about self-publishing already in 2010 (A New Yorker in Oslo: Publish Your Book using CreateSpace (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com); just as an update, CreateSpace eventually became KDP for those who are interested. Once the book is out for sale on Amazon, it's easy to tweet about it or share the link on social media. So what are vanity publishers using the 20,000 dollars for? They're getting rich from taking advantage of first-time authors who don't know any better. They're also criminals for lying to authors.
One sad thing about getting older is finding out how many people lie, or are willing to lie to get ahead, to make money, or to be successful. There are people willing to sell out their relationships and family in order to make money. There are people who were perhaps willing to cheat or be dishonest when they were young, who became cheaters and dishonest people as adults. It's disconcerting to read about them, and even more disconcerting to know them personally. I find it sad that most professions are built on the backs of honest hard-working people who never really found out how or even that they were taken advantage of until they were older, and by then the only feelings they can feel are disappointment and sadness. It's too late to do anything about it. It's hard not to feel sad when you realize that in many professions--academia, publishing, business, journalism, medicine--there are those who don't mind shamming others, who don't mind lying and cheating their way to the top, who don't mind stepping on others or holding them back, and who don't care what others think of them. Perhaps that is the way of the world, and perhaps that has always been the way of the world. Nevertheless, it is still quite jarring.
