August Blues (#IWSG August 2025)

Where the hell did July go?

I've been caught in a state of limbo. With the publication of Gale Harbour Book 3 a few months ago, for the first time in five years I find myself without a book to work on. I mean, I have dozens of ideas for books, and four or five that I've actually started, but without a series looming over my head, I haven't had the motivation to write much. 

It doesn't help that after the initial release of book 3, where I had my best Amazon month ever, my sales fell off a cliff. June and July I had literally one sale per month. It seems like a lot of work for not much pay-off, you know? It's not even about the money. I want people to read my stuff, and hopefully enjoy it. Ono top of the sales, I've only received one review of the new book in three months, so I honestly have no idea if anyone enjoyed it, or if they even read it. 

Oh well. Maybe I'm just tired. Hopefully I shrug this off sooner than later.

August Question - What is the most unethical practice in the publishing industry?

I know everyone's going to say "AI-published books," so I'm going to take a different approach. 

Years ago, I wrote a little about J.R. Robertson, a 19th-century Canadian publisher who, by all appearances, started out as a optimistic young journalist with morals and integrity. Whether using his school newspaper to fight the oppressive school administration, or becoming city editor for the top newspaper in the country at 24 and revolutionizing journalism to be more clear, concise and ready-friendly, he seemed like a pretty stand-up guy. Then, he started his own paper, started making real money, and his morals went out the window.

With the rise of popular fiction in the late 19th century, Robertson decided to use his printing presses to get on the bandwagon. Instead of actually hiring authors however, he just stole popular books from the US and Great Britain, and re-published them without credit or compensation to the original authors. Copyright law was really messy back then, so what he was doing may not have been entirely illegal, but it certainly wasn't very ethical. It's estimated that between 1877 and the 1890s, he sold about 2 million copies of 350 different books, all without the original authors' and publishers' permission.

What was my point? I don't remember. I think I was getting at the fact that publishers are just inherently corrupt. Especially newspaper publishers. William Randolph Hearst convinced the US government to outlaw marijuana, thereby banning hemp plants, in order to protect his lumber, paper and newspaper industry. News of the World illegally tapped the phones of celebrities, politicians and crime victims to steal the best scoops. And don't forget how politicians love to use the media to control what people read, view and, ultimately, think. Having money (and wanting more) along with the ability to manipulate the message going out to the masses, is a monstrously dangerous combination.

Jim Morrison famously said: "Whoever controls the media controls the mind," but he didn't originate the idea. Thirty years earlier, US White House Administration hero Joseph Goebbels wrote: "He who controls the medium controls the message. He who controls the message controls the masses." Sadly, that still remains very true. It shows the danger of the publishing industry in general, and warns of the many ways it can be abused.

(Rant over)

Hugs & kisses,
-CDGK

The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Writers post their thoughts on their blogs, talking about their doubts and the fears they have conquered. It's a chance for writers to commiserate and offer a word of encouragement to each other. Check out the group at http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com

Revenge of the Space-Surfing Butt Monkeys: COVER RE-REVEAL?

So I wasn't completely happy with the previous cover for Gale Harbour 2: Revenge of the Space-Surfing Butt Monkeys. I had an idea but I just couldn't get it to confer what I wanted.

So here's a new version:

I do like this one, it's a lot cleaner and impactful than the previous one. There is, however, one glaring issue that someone pointed out to me, and now I can't unsee it. 

What about you? Anyone else have any thoughts on the cover?

Hugs & Kisses,

-CDGK

R - J.R. Robertson, Toronto's First Literary Pirate

John Ross Robertson was born in Toronto in 1841. As a child he collected pictures and historical memorabilia (so he was a nerd, basically), and in high school he started his own newspaper, which may have been the first school newspaper of its kind in Canada. He got into trouble with the school administration for printing negative pieces about them, and had to close and rename his paper several times. To be fair to Robertson, he was actually only chastising the school for their movie-villain-style schemes, like trying to tear down the school playground (which Robertson stopped).

After leaving school Robertson started his own print and publishing businesses as well as founded several papers and magazines. By 1865 he was city editor for the Globe, one of Toronto's (and the country's) top papers, which continues to this day as the Globe and Mail. He won numerous awards for journalism and was credited for "introducing to the paper the practice of writing crisp, short paragraphs about a multiplicity of local happenings, rather than sermon-like and wordy essays about outstanding events."

You know, basically the opposite of the way I write.

Preferring to be in charge, Robertson jumped ship just a year later to start his own paper, the Evening Telegraph (later the Evening Telegram). The Telegraph was characterized as news as entertainment, with colourful words, flashy ads, low price and catering to the "average, lower class family" with lowbrow, trashy stories. It was basically a tabloid, and also continues today in its spiritual successor, the Toronto Sun.

Which is also not much better than a tabloid.

The paper was hugely successful, and Robertson became one of Canada's first press barons. Just like today, the people who control the media control the masses, and so JR Robertson was a powerful, influential figure. He used this power to dabble in new enterprises, like rampant literary piracy.

With the rise of popular fiction, and since JRR owned his own printing presses, it was only natural that he would try his hand at book publishing. But instead of finding his own authors and new manuscripts, he just stole works that were already popular in the U.S. or Britain and sold them in Canada without the author or publisher's permission. Due to the lack of international copyright laws, Robertson made a fortune shamelessly reprinting these works. His "Robertson Cheap Editions" (seriously, that was the name) sold for 3 to 50 cents a copy, a fraction of the price of the legitimate volumes. Between 1877 and the early 1890s, it is estimated that Robertson sold up to 2 million copies of as many as 350 titles. He even serialized the works in the Telegram.

The 19th-century equivalent of Torrenting an ePub file.

Of course, what he was doing wasn't technically illegal, but it made him unpopular in certain circles, especially among British copyright lawyers. They argued that as a dominion of Great Britain, Canada should follow their copyright laws, which of course Canadians balked against. Prime Minister John Sparrow Thompson (no relation to Captain Jack Sparrow) appointed Robertson as lead to sort out the copyright laws and actually sent him to London to negotiate with the British, which spelled an end to the Robertson Cheap Editions. I imagine it would have been hard for Robertson to strike any kind of deal with the British while he was ripping them off at the same time.

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Like many rich industrialist of his era, JR Robertson was a fascinating and controversial figure. I only touched on a fraction of his life today. If you want to know more, check out: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/robertson_john_ross_14E.html

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My A-to-Z Blogging Challenge theme for 2017 is Weird Canadian Facts and History. To see more blog posts, click here.