Do you know where this idea that a published book is the singular qualifying factor for a person to be considered a writer comes from?
If you like thinking about the origins of major cultural phenomena, like I do, you can probably guess that the answer lies in colonialism and then, of course, the capitalists - whose guiding principle in life is that if you can convince people that they are less in some way, they will buy what you are selling to feel like they’ve become more - came and basically ran with the idea till they convinced each and every one of us that the NY Times Bestseller lists were the gold standard of success as a writer.
Side Note: The legitimacy of bestseller lists, particularly the NY Times list is best illustrated by this gem of an experiment carried out by columnist Mike McGrady. In 1966, our man McGrady, got together a bunch of his colleagues (twenty-four of them to be precise) to write a trash-sex book that was essentially “deliberately inconsistent hodge-podge, with each chapter written by a different author,” and edited, mind you, to remove any trace of “good” (whatever the feck that means) writing, social relevance and literary zest. This book, this hoax of a book, went on the NY Times bestseller list in 1969, and was (yeets from the rafters) EVEN MADE INTO A FILM in 1975 - after the authors had revealed what they had done.
Feel free to use this as a formula to carving your name in the annals of publishing stardom - I would be happy to contribute the non-sexual parts, not because I am a prude, but because I am so bad at writing sex - like worse than Arundhati Roy and Ayn Rand combined. It was the excavation of this fact that led to my asexual awakening, to be honest. But that’s a story for another time.
And the best part is, McGrady actually put in the effort of creating a book and waiting three years for it to prove his point (the point being that anything with enough sex in it will make a bestseller list - I mean if this was the 80’s McGrady could probably have just written a 3k Star Wars fic and probably gotten the same results, if it weren’t for copyright laws - but that’s where the capitalism part comes in.) But more recently, people don’t even need to do that - just read this lovely piece of investigative journalism by Kayleigh Donaldson on Pajiba that talks about how a book scammed its way to the YS Bestseller List while also giving us the rundown on some inconvenient truths about the publishing industry.
And if you still need some more convincing, read this cool little piece by Serena Smith on the influencer-to-author pipeline (hey, that’s what they call it, not me) that appeared on Dazed a few weeks ago. To quote, "There’s an inescapable sense that for influencers, ‘writing a book’ (or using a ghostwriter to do so) is increasingly seen as a means of cultivating a particular brand image and making bank, rather than a means of making a meaningful contribution to the cultural conversation." If nothing else, the article explains why I bought a copy of Lilly Singh’s How to be a Bawse from the charming street bookstore in Camp and ended up giving it away to the waste-paperman when I was moving. Without reading it. A street-to-scrap pipeline, if you will.
Wait. Before I segued into stories dissing the contemporary publishing industry, I was about to talk about colonialism. So coming back to that, we need to acknowledge that publishing was a massive instrument of empire. It was the pointy-end of the two nonviolent approaches to conquest - religion and education. Where did the missionaries preach from? That’s right, books. How did the colonizers attempt to scrub the heathen beliefs out of the heads of the grubby little natives? Yes, in schools that used TEXTBOOKS printed by the selfsame publishers who gave us grand literary masterpieces like - the Ethnological Origin of the Negro where a white human (I am purposely not mentioning his name, but a reference link to where I found this story is included below, mainly because I really enjoyed how this man’s story ended) suggested that African people had originated from one of the animals on Noah’s Ark - and The White Man’s Burden - which is one of the reasons why I hate all adaptations of the Jungle Book, even the Jan Favreau version which dealt a serious blow to Kipling’s innate imperialism - the only thing I do appreciate about Jungle Book is the splendid childhood memory of singing along to Jungle jungle baat chali hai, pata chala hai…
The point being, that books - printed, published and mostly authored by white male-types were positioned as the fonts of ultimate sophistication - the agents of civilization and ultimately wealth. In their own nations, imperialists targeted this belief system at the middle-class (which is why most printing presses were owned by the King or Queen and publishers answered to His/Her Highnesses for most of the 16th and 17th centuries.) In their colonies, these were targeted - mostly inhumanely at the local populations. To be able to read (in the language of the colonials, of course) was to gain a window into how upright, morally correct citizens comported themselves. And to write a book and have it published - well, that… that was how you knew you had made it. From being a consumer of the golden philosophy, you became a mouthpiece for it. In the language of the colonials, of course. And it took a really long time for the locals to get there - to being published authors.
For reference: The British East India Company first established rule in the sub-continent in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey (I knew those history lessons in school were not for nothing). The first Indian author published in the UK was in 1794 - a generation later. Sake Dean Mahomed (which, I really feel obligated to point out should ideally be spelt Sheikh Deen Mohammad - but it's still using English, so...) was basically one of the first Indians to immigrate to the UK. He made a business out of Indian food and massage parlours. This is a picture of the guy, by the way. Enough said, I think.
The first British colony was established on the North American continent at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. The first Native American person to be published was in 1772. The author was Samson Occum, a member of the Mohegan nation, who converted to Christianity and became a Missionary in New England. His first published work - A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, An Indian Who Was Executed at New Haven on the 2nd of September 1772 for the Murder of Mr. Moses Cook, late of Waterbury (now that took some breath, didn’t it?).
The first black author to be published was in 1773. The author’s name was Phyllis Wheatley (women represent!) and the name of the collection of English poems was - wait for it - Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. And a bunch of white people had to sign on the first page to authenticate the fact that Phyllis - a black slave, originally kidnapped in Gambia - was in fact, the actual author of the work.
Side Note: I am not talking about the literary history of any place. Or trying to subtract from the prowess and determination of the individuals mentioned. I am specifically examining the history of publication in pre-independence nations - a history that very concertedly places books as the ultimate prize/achievement for writing. Also, feel free to fact-check me. I have linked in sources where I could. I am also including a list of sites, articles and papers I referred to while writing this. Hope you find them as enriching and enlightening as I did!
The point ultimately is, the reason why so many of us fear writing is because we consider the published book to be the end-point of every writing journey - the pinnacle of it. And because we don’t see ourselves getting there - because how can we ever compare to those who came before - we don't write. But this belief was very purposefully embedded into our psyche by the machinations of those who wanted to destroy our self-esteem so they could rule, reform and civilize us. Colonialism and the class structure are at the roots of a lot of our limiting beliefs as a culture. Including the middle-class notion of a formal education (one that is reliant on textbooks and not practical learning or mentorship) being the only path to success. Or the idea that gender is binary (pfft) and that God made Adam and Eve and Steve just came running along for the apples. Or something.
So if you want to write, let’s write.
Let’s not complicate things by assuming that writers all want to / should have to / must aim at getting books published to be writers. Recognize who - and for what purpose - planted the publishing daydream in your head. Then give it a tight hug and let go of the publishing daydream.
But then the question arises - yes, stranger with interestingly-coloured hair in the back, I hear you - what must a writer aim at? Surely there has to be a goal, right?
Hmmm… we’ll get to that in the next update:
WHY DO YOU WANT TO WRITE?
So, stay tuned!
Resources, References and Further Reading
Just a general, no-nonsense, no personality history of printing and publishing, brought to you by the same people who burdened most school libraries and a fair number of English-speaking middle-class homes with the 32 volume set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. If any of you had them growing up, do let me know what became of them.
The wikipedia version of the history, which is definitely more engaging, has more pictures and mentions the names of the Chinese and Korean inventors of moveable type printing (both countries beat Europe to it by centuries (four and two to be precise)). The article also links to a list of women printers in the 1800s - a fascinating read, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Manuscript and Print, 1500–1700 - Oxford Handbooks: a paper by Christopher Burlinson, that I admit I only skimmed through for some period context.
Colonialism is alive and well in the Publishing World by Aida Edemariam, senior writer and editor at the Guardian and International Booker Prize 2021 judge
Quote:
"English novels are read all over the world, but publishers in English-speaking countries tend not to return the favour."
Thinking about the Legacies of Colonialism in Publishing by John Maxwell, director of the Publishing Programme at the Simon Fraser University
Quotes:
"It began with religious, government, and educational publishing, but in the 20th century, as “colonialism” ceased to be an orienting term in public life, the project was articulated more in terms of class and social mobility. Books and literature had long been the markers of class distinction and indeed self-improvement for the middle classes. The ways in which trade and mass-market publishing shaped up in the 20th century reinforced notions of what it meant to be cultured, educated, well-read."
"The idea of a best-selling book – the book that everyone reads – comes out of the colonial paradigm: gathering and sustaining mass audiences around a small number of texts in heavy circulation."
What Is Propaganda? a 1944 publication by Ralph D. Casey, Professor, School of Journalism, University of Minnesota, published on the American Historical Association website
Quote:
"The term “propaganda” apparently first came into common use in Europe as a result of the missionary activities of the Catholic church. In 1622 Pope Gregory XV created in Rome the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. This was a commission of cardinals charged with spreading the faith and regulating church affairs in heathen lands. A College of Propaganda was set up under Pope Urban VIII to train priests for the missions."
The roots of European racism lie in the slave trade, colonialism – and Edward Long | Article by historian David Olusoga in the Guardian
Quote:
"The men who set out to defend slavery assembled a vast arsenal of new claims and old theories about black people, which they then codified, refined and disseminated through books, pamphlets, cartoons and speeches.
The book that, arguably, did the most to disseminate racial ideas about Africans was written by a man who never set foot on African soil. Edward Long was a slave owner and the son of a slave owner, his family having been in Jamaica since the middle of the 17th century. His ideas about black people and Africa were widely accepted as being rigorous and scientific, although Long had no scientific training. The book that made him famous, his History of Jamaica (1774), was not a history book but rather a strange hybrid; part travel guide, part discussion of British colonial rule and economics in the Caribbean, and part political score-settling. But it is also the classic text of 18th-century European pseudo-scientific racism."
This is the story of the awful white human person. Read at your own risk.
Harvard Historian examines how Textbooks taught White Supremacy: Liz Mineo interviews American Historian Donald Yacovone, an associate at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research for the Harvard Gazette
Quote:
White supremacy is a toxin. The older history textbooks were like syringes that injected the toxin of white supremacy into the mind of many generations of Americans.
Inside the rise of Influencer Publishing | This article by Ellen Peirson-Hagger, assistant culture editor at the New Statesman, is a far more nuanced and balanced look at influencer publishing.
Do You Trust the New York Times Bestseller List? | A Blog Post by Author and Filmmaker Gary Lindberg that lists out the issues that undermine the credibility of bestseller lists
Picture Credits
Cover Image: The Chicago Bee, Edited by E. R. CAMPFIELD, Image provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL 13 Oct. 1946. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
Book Cover of Naked Came the Stranger, taken from Michael Sauers’ Old Paperback Covers Collection on Flickr, under the Non-Commercial Use Licence
Sake Dean Mahomed (1759–1851), portrait from Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
Samson Occom by Jonathan Spilsbury, after Mason Chamberlin, 1768, mezzotint on paper, from the National Portrait Gallery
Portrait of Phillis Wheatley - Frontispiece to Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects... attributed by some scholars to Scipio Moorhead from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Catalogue
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