Michael O. Church

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@dbasch @antoniogm The one thing even the poorest people have is that at least they are not Elon Musk.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@granawkins @antoniogm Or just: not wanting to starve and be homeless.

Maybe it's different overseas, but in the US, you can be legally raped out of a job for anything you say online.

We live under an authoritarian regime. It just has better PR than the old ones did.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@chrisheatherly @antoniogm This is correct. There's no such thing as democracy under capitalism.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@writeconscious And the 0.0% figure is proven, too:

https://t.co/9spxWY9L53

Trad pub is a sucker's game. And the query system will never be fixed, because there's too much money being made on it being broken—selling introductions via $10k developmental edits is every agent's retirement plan.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@Simon__Grimm It's trad pub's open secret. Authors have to spend 6+ hours/day to make up for the marketing & publicity they're NOT getting from their publishers, leaving no time for writing.

It's not what they signed up for, but it's the only way they can meet expectations and stay published.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@autumn_inkblood @AnthonyLaFauci It's insulting but also irrelevant. Lawyers don't need to "fall in love" with clients to do their jobs. They're supposed to be hired for objectivity.

They use subjectivity as a shield because their objectivity is such fecal trash. But their subjectivity's trash too.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@LeslieDRush @AnthonyLaFauci So repulsive. No one cares about a lit agent's subjectivity. They're hired for objectivity. You don't need to love a book to do your fucking job. Do lawyers "love" every client?

Their objectivity is trash, so they fall back on subjectivity. And their subjectivity's trash too.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

Church's Revelation: The career benefit for a writer in being published by a venue is inversely proportional to the likelihood of a single reader reading it for pleasure.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@amandafortini In theory, you could use AI to produce trad-pub slop, solve the money and reputation problems, and then spend your time writing books you actually care about.

This was written as satirical but, sadly, seems to have some prophecy in it: https://t.co/N3yM2gs2C5

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

Observing the MOC-pocalypse I predicted three years ago is... weirdly, not as fun as I didn't thought it would be.
(Yes, the above is ungrammatical. Proof I'm not AI.)

[Amy DeBellis @amykdebellis]

One of the most prestigious lit mags just awarded a $5k prize to AI-generated slop. A Nobel-winning author announced that she uses AI to help “make her ideas beautiful.” Barnes & Noble plans to sell AI-generated books in their stores…

The “official” literary world is crumbling.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@KoalaQuillHQ Publishers can't be bothered to find 20,000 people who will buy your book, so they force you to find 2,000,000 people who definitely won't buy your book.

"Build platform" is a cool-off. Same as the query system. Waste your time, distract you, keep you out of the building.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@matthewbdexter @KoalaQuillHQ Not just a waste of time, but dangerous. You're exposing yourself to trolls and weirdos just to make their jobs easier.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@MalindaDetweil1 Might be the best time. Less opportunity cost.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

The cure for impostor syndrome is to observe the competence level of other people.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@KoalaQuillHQ One weird trick that actually works.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@KoalaQuillHQ Or as I put it: To self-publish, you must start a business. To traditionally publish, you must join a cult.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

Atana zetur Kana'a feska dositar peles lyris-fa dosh.

(God must hate my enemies because I'm still alive.)

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@stephenRB4 https://t.co/9spxWY9L53

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@Sophie_Bowns @altonfletcher16 She's a symptom, but I agree. Publishing realized it can't turn poetry into easy money, so it ignored it and let the weeds take over.

Return to the historical norm of self-publishing is a certainty at this point. I just hope we who care about art can beat enshittification.

[Michael O. Church @MichaelOChurch]

@jmgwritten AI will crack the commercial bestseller in a few years if it hasn't already, but it can't write serious artistic fiction.

We do something machines can't. We just don't know how to make people pay for it... and trad pub (slop artists long before AI) are not our allies.