Cory Doctorow is a science fiction writer who is also a political activist, with a lot to say about capitalism, most of it not nice. He does not mince words.
Recently, he wrote a long post that is of relevance to both authors and readers. ‘How a billionaire’s mediocre pump-and-dump “book” became a “bestseller“‘ takes you through the sometimes fascinating and bizarre cottage industry that lets you “buy” your way onto the bestseller lists.
As you might imagine, Doctorow has a lot to say about this. 🙂
If you don’t want to read through his long-ish post, then I’ve clipped the quote that made me want to draw your attention to it:
This is good advice for any time, but for here and now it’s particularly relevant.
When anyone with a few thousand dollars to spare can buy themselves a NYT Bestselling book, when anyone with a good AI can pump out books at an alarming rate, and have them up for sale the very same day, when pirated copies of everything can be found everywhere, the one remaining thing left for readers and authors to use as a weapon against the floodtide of mediocre reading is to tell everyone you know about a good book, when you read one.
That might be in the form of reviews, or a simple sentence on your social media account.
It could mean spending three minutes talking about how blown away you were by a book when you’re eating out with friends.
It won’t cost you anything but a moment of your time.
Just a thought.
Taylen.