Don't Hate the Playa, Hate the Game

[Nothing like dorky white guys using outdated street slang!]

A couple of weeks ago I finally got around to watching "The Ides Of March".  It's about Steve (Ryan Gosling) who is a campaign manager (or assistant manager) for Gov. Mike Morris (George Clooney, who directed and co-wrote the screenplay) as he runs for president.  The story doesn't focus on the whole campaign, just the Ohio primary between Morris and some other guy who's not important.  Also working for the campaign is Molly, who hooks up with Steve one night in a bar.  And then after that (SPOILER ALERT!) he finds out Molly also hooked up with Morris and is carrying his baby.  The rest of the story is about how Steve and Molly's naive view of the world is completely destroyed.

I have to agree that politics is largely a game that chews people up and spits them out.  Prior to watching "Ides of March" I watched "Casino Jack" about "superlobbyist" Jack Abramoff, who when the shit hit the fan realized that none of his "friends" in politics would have his back.  Instead they would turn their backs and feign ignorance about all the money and favors he did for them.  (There's a great "Scrubs"-type fantasy where Abramoff goes off on a Senate panel headed by John McCain, screaming at them about how much money he gave all the assholes in the room who were then busting him for ethics violations.)  Because really it's every man for himself and every woman for herself.  Basically like "Survivor" there are no friends, just temporary allies.  It's all about how much you can use people and for how long.

Then I got thinking, you know what this reminds me of?  Publishing!

Like Steve and Molly we all come into publishing with these visions of writing an awesome book, becoming millionaires, and being beloved like J.K. Rowling or Stephanie Meyer.  Then we send out the first batch of queries and SMACK! we run right into the wall of opposition.  Because like politics, publishing isn't a kid's soccer game where you're supposed to have fun and make friends and the score doesn't really matter (except to those Type-A parents living through their kids).  This is a business.  It's about making $$$$ not making art or making the world a better place or anything like that.

And just like in politics, there are dirty tricks in selling books too.  For instance, some people round up all their "friends" on Twitter, Facebook, etc. and get them to all buy a book on Amazon at about the same time.  That way they can manipulate Amazon's rankings so that for a brief moment it'll be #1 in some category and then they can claim it's a #1 Bestseller on Amazon!  (I mean sure it was for an hour in the "Books About Christian Families With 1 Girl and 1 Boy and 1 Golden Retriever" category.)  Or maybe you and a bunch of "friends" all go "Liking" each other's books and writing 5-star reviews to make them seem better.

These things might seem shady or dishonest, but again it's a business.  A business that's about selling books.  And sometimes that means doing things you don't want to do, like "following" 200 blogs you don't actually care about reading so those people will "follow" you and maybe one or two will buy your book someday!

Of course that doesn't mean you have to end up a soulless political killing machine like Steve in "Ides of March" or writing bitter letters to former colleagues from prison like Jack Abramoff.  It does mean you should be aware going into it that it's not going to be as much fun as you thought and you may have to compromise some of your high-fallutin' artistic integrity.  At least if you want to stay in the game.  Otherwise you can self-publish and give copies to your family to pretend to read.