Many thanks to Jonny Diamond at The Lit Hub for publishing my essay “The Writer as Merchant,” which touches on things that I’ve been thinking about and observed as a debut novelist and host of Vermin on the Mount: intersection of art and commerce. I’m also indebted to Juliet Escoria and Chelsea Hodson who spoke with me about their own experiences for the piece. A sample:
Today, when a storyteller completes a new narrative, she doesn’t head down to the town square or village pub and look for people to tell it to, she has other people do that for her. For many storytellers, this is a relief because selling is a skill like any other and some are good at it while others are not. Most would prefer to be engaged in telling stories not selling them. But this ambition became an expectation so that those who did sell their own stories were seen as a lesser class of storyteller, that “real” storytellers were above that.
To this I say, bullshit.
I know what you’re thinking: I’m not selling my book out of a sack on the subway, the boardwalk or Bev-Mo parking lot.
This isn’t about that. This essay is about art, independence and eliminating the middleman—or at least asking him to step aside and take a breather from time to time.