/lit/ - Literature

>>17352643
I agree with you, but I think the prevalence of self-publishing nowadays is a symptom of a bigger problem - the dangerous fallacy that 'anyone can be a writer'. Everyone should write, yes, ideally through journaling, to encourage introspection, communication and personal growth. But NOT everyone should try to be a writer. There are literally hundreds of thousands of deluded young men and women who start dabbling with writing in their early twenties, but they have nothing to say. Like all crafts, the jump from 'shit' to 'mediocre' is vastly bigger, and happens much more quickly, than the jump from 'mediocre' to 'good', which is still easier than going from 'good' to 'excellent' and 'publishable'. But people land somewhere between 'mediocre' and 'good', fool themselves with trite stories about grief, sexual awakening, or some other such topic, and decide they have what it takes to be a writer. Everything is derivative, or an imitation of something that's gone before, rather than true self-expression. And because they make 'being a writer' and 'reading books' such a big part of their personal identities, and pick up lots of (ultimately shallow) knowledge while browsing this board, it becomes harder and harder for them to admit they don't have what it takes. There are children who were on the gifted and talented register for English at the age of 8, who wrote and dreamed all through their childhoods, and are simply better than late-blooming dilettantes will ever be. These are the people who will get traditionally published, and seething amateurs, desperate to maintain their own self-image, resort to self-pub.

Take literally any one of the examples posted in this thread (with the possible exception of >>17336078 which is very strong, but impossible to judge fully without seeing context). Compare these with the first page of Quichotte, published by Salman Rushdie in 2019...