Funk Head

Was I a man dreaming I'm a butterfly; or am I now a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?

^ this is not chara/the first human/your player

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There's a subset of self-published indie authors who write a ludicrous number of books a year, we're talking double digit releases of full novels, and these folks make a lot of money telling you how you can do the same thing. A lot of them feature in breathless puff pieces about how "competitive" self-publishing is as an industry now.

A lot of these authors aren't being completely honest with you, though. They'll give you secrets for time management and plotting and outlining and marketing and what have you. But the way they're able to write, edit, and publish 10+ books a year, by and large, is that they're hiring ghostwriters.

They're using upwork or fiverr to find people to outline, draft, edit, and market their books. Most of them, presumably, do write some of their own stuff! But many "prolific" indie writers are absolutely using ghostwriters to speed up their process, get higher Amazon best-seller ratings, and, bluntly, make more money faster.

When you see some godawful puff piece floating around about how some indie writer is thinking about having to start using AI to "stay competitive in self-publishing", the part the journalist isn't telling you is that the 'indie writer' in question is planning to use AI instead of paying some guy on Upwork to do the drafting.

The answer is that they're playing the algorithm.

It'd be so easy to drop this at Amazon's door, but quite frankly, all book retailers reward this behavior. If you are pumping out work regularly, the sales algorithm will reward you because it keeps you relevant. I'm not talking about authors who produce one book a year or even two or the few people who are genuinely that prolific.

I'm talking about the above people, who, let's face it, treat indie publishing as a form of content farming.

I have zero issues with authors who use ghostwriters, especially when they're honest about it. (James Patterson is a notable example.)

But the people who hide it or attribute it to their "hustle game" while claiming we're all in competition with each other are not competing with writers; they're competing with other Algorithm Gamers because they've realized that no matter the quality of their work, as long as they have something in the New Release category, they're making money.

They're competing to stay relevant in terms of quantity, not quality because they don't actually have anything to say.

It's all just clicks to them -- and I'm willing to bet they make more money from getting people to click their (usually undisclosed) affiliate links than they do their actual books.

So take heart, dear writer. You are not competing with these people.

The vast majority of us don't view the rest of our community as competition. We're just trying to get our own work out the door while also supporting our friends as best we can.

the last time i did a piece like this, it was about needing constant augmentation to be able to function in society, and even then with all the work that takes, still not being able to do so.

this one is kind of a follow up to that, as it is about my adhd medication being able to combat issues in relation to focus, and my anti-depressants being able to combat base mood disorder, but not the desire, or rather lack thereof, to fit into that system.