Diary of a Mad Editor

There’s a rather interesting article posted over at The Huffington Post about the current state of publishing. It’s author, Tom Matlack, has some harsh words for the mainstream American publishing industry and, while Big Publishing is deserving of much of the criticism it’s attracted of late, I do find that Matlack’s whiny, petulant, self-serving rant is uncalled for in this instance.

Matlack’s premise that his anthology project was universally rejected by every notable publisher he submitted the project to simply because “men don’t read” is somewhat disingenuous. While it’s probably true that women do make up the highest percentage of the book-buying public, men do read. Mostly men read non-fiction. History, sports, political memoirs, etc. And the fiction they do read tends to fall somewhere in the thriller category for the most part. As such, the prediction that men wouldn’t want to read Matlock’s anthology is probably dead-on accurate. Anthologies, in general, do not sell well — either to male or female readers. An anthology of first-person accounts by men “with stories to tell about fathers, sons, husbands and providers at this turning point in man-history”? Who the fuck would read that? I’m a guy and a voracious reader who’ll read just about anything and I’d just as soon stick a fork in my eye as read that shit. After all, I know first-hand what it’s like to be a guy so I don’t really need to read about it. See, I have this thing called a penis that is a constant reminder that I am male. I have no interest in sitting around a campfire beating Robert Bly’s drum swapping “guy stories” about how tough it is to be a man in this world or reading stories written by other men who do.

Seriously, instead of bitching about the publishers who won’t publish his pet project, perhaps Matlack should see how many eunuchs are visiting the public library these days.

Besides hasn’t there been similar projects in the past? I’m sure there have been. How many of those books lit-up the bestseller lists? I predict that Matlack will spend far more money producing and promoting this project than he will ever receive from it. And that’s not the fault of Big Publishing or celebrities book deals or women who read chick lit or male readers who’d rather read the latest Vince Flynn novel.