“Are You Not Entertained!”

One might ask, “What is the purpose of a novel, or a non-fiction title for that matter? Why do we pluck them from the shelves of bookstores or libraries?” In many cases—aside from the occasional school assignment, religious study, or other like purpose—the attraction we hold for these books is based, foremost, on the fact that we view them as a source of enjoyment. In addition to the usual reasons offered by some—you know, the pursuit of intellectual stimulation or growth; spiritual enlightenment, what have you—people mainly read to be entertained.

We want to be swept into a story—be absorbed by it, if you will—by the sheer elements involved. We want to be drawn in by compelling characters, be they rogues or savants; jaded spinsters or ruthless businessmen. And if it’s a self-help book or lengthy exposition of nanotechnology, the information has to be presented in a manner that is conducive to holding our interest—meaning it has to entertain in some way.

These are facts that authors need to bear in mind, including (and perhaps especially) authors who employ POD technology. So you love to write. No, you LIVE to write! I grant you that. You’ve just completed a grand literary exercise in ethereality; an exercise that you know in your heart will not cause the lowliest literary agent to bat an eye—much less the acquisitions editor of a small press. Simon & Schuster, as far as you’re concerned, is on the other side of a wormhole, since it would be virtually impossible to get them to consider your book—it is, after all, a little out-of-left-field, what with its experimental didacticism and philosophical profundity. What options are you left with then? Well, there is the technologically convenient and cost-effective method of print-on-demand. BINGO!

So, hopped up on a free flow of adrenaline, you rush your baby into print, a slew of typographical and other errors therewith—hey, you yourself couldn’t stand to read your experimental opus more than two times, and your friends, bless their hearts, won’t give you an honest opinion either, seeing they only read the thing from cover to Table of Contents. Irrespective of that, your book goes forward. It gets the treatment—an Amazon listing, B&N.com—so you start Googling for POD reviewers to score some needed publicity. “Ah!” you say, when you stumble on a blog called POD Critic, and you think to yourself, I’m sure he won’t be as bored to tears reading this thing as I was when I wrote it.

Then comes the review. Aghast, you fire off an email to this . . . this, uninformed buffoon, who, for the sake of his literary nearsightedness, can’t spot your genius. So you give him what for! You get your fury off your chest and, perhaps, feel better about yourself, knowing how wrong these critics are. Thus begins your downward spiral into the dank, dark tunnel of denial, from which will spring another dismal POD title in the near future; a title you can’t wait to send POD Critic’s way.