The Problem with Authors

[TeaDidikai]

I've heard it said that the problem with politicians is that the people who seek power are the last ones who should have it. Maybe this isn't too far from the truth and it could be at the root of why there are so many fluffy books on the shelves.

If the only people who write books on paganism are the ones who are seeking money, fame and the spread of their personal brand of enlightened paganism then it's no wonder that there's a glut of fluffy mental masturbation on the market.

What kinds of things should we do to change this?
What kinds of standards should be put in place?
How does an author write something appealing enough to be published while having enough integrity to pass muster with such a diverse scene?  

[Shearaha]

Perhaps something similar to the academic community. If you want to be accredited then your work needs to be reviewed and approved by peers. Or in this case at least historically accurate and not dependent upon debunked theory's.  

[too2sweet]

Shearaha

Perhaps something similar to the academic community. If you want to be accredited then your work needs to be reviewed and approved by peers. Or in this case at least historically accurate and not dependent upon debunked theory's.

I was thinking along the same lines, and then read down and saw that you had posted it. xd

I mean it's hard, because there is no "centralized" authority, and at this point, I think the misinformation is so widespread, that I'm not sure that there is any way to completely contain it (or even reverse it). Then there's the whole issue of "who" would be the "peers" that would be doing the reviews. I mean you have the whole "wicca is whatever you want it to be" community, that would review half the crap out there, and tell us that it's all perfectly wonderful, well written, etc... But I do think there needs to be standards, and that authors should be held accountable when they go out of their way to stretch the truth (or outright lie) all in the name of making a quick buck.  

[AniMajor]

Really, I'm not sure how much of it can actually be monitored or policed, especially when you're dealing with someone personal practices (no matter how fluffy, stupid or terrible they are). There'd have to be a set criteria of what made it in, and determining whether someone's beliefs were intellectually honest is incredibly difficult.

I met a woman who published her book on magnetic angel healing and the coming of the end of the world through light planes intersecting. Talking to her, she absolutely believed, and would gladly explain how it made absolute sense, as revealed by her guardian angel Michael.

She's clearly not trying to hurt anyone with her book, even if her goal is spreading the word and, as a side effect, making money. So, telling her that her book is totally ridiculous and nonsensical is basically saying that her beliefs and personal practices are ridiculous and nonsensical and that her trying to talk about it is harmful.  

[Collowrath]

TeaDidikai

What kinds of things should we do to change this?
What kinds of standards should be put in place?
How does an author write something appealing enough to be published while having enough integrity to pass muster with such a diverse scene?

There's something in the culture that needs to change - if you remember my last post in the Ethnic Slur petition, I think you'll pick out exactly what I'm referring to. The culture of entitlement toward our beliefs at the expense of responsibility needs to be picked up, crumpled up, and tossed the hell out. Whoever started this idea in our elementary schools that opinions can't be wrong and that they're sacred gems of inherent value is doing an active disservice to us as a culture.

Off the top of my head, two ways to achieve this are apparent: firstly, reform our school system toward valuing learning and debate rather than fostering a feeling of accomplishment regardless of real forward movement.

The second one is the one more pertinent toward the discussion here and now - active challenge and debate. My current mood suggests rapid fire shock and awe truth campaigns, but that seems to be rooted in my current frustration. biggrin Realistically? Be good consumers. Don't purchase materials you know are bad - promote those that are good with purchases and word of mouth. Educate in our respective communities and about our respective communities. Hopefully this will help push out the crap as people stop falling for it.

My standard is simple: intellectual and personal responsibility and integrity. Authors should muster the personal integrity to not publish questionable materials without being upfront with the questionable nature of it. I realize that we all have different standards and that this is a lot more complicated than that, but I think there is a certain baseline honesty that is absolutely reasonable to ask of authors who intend to distribute their works for money.

"How does an author write something appealing enough to be published while having enough integrity to pass muster with such a diverse scene?"

Don't try to cater to the entire neopagan scene. I think I may have defeated the purpose of the question or otherwise just not answered meaningfully - but I'm thinking the best way to maintain quality within the scene is to not cater to it as a whole. Work your niche, I guess.

Conversely, if I were to write about my traditions for the neopagan scene, I'd write from a purely personal perspective: I believe this, I think this, I do this, rather than we, they, etc. It occurs to me that maintaining an active distance from universal claims might go a long way toward neopagan authors not running into trouble when it comes to fluff.

EDIT: I win at being full of hot air. blaugh and also full of coffee.  

[Collowrath]

AniMajor

She's clearly not trying to hurt anyone with her book, even if her goal is spreading the word and, as a side effect, making money. So, telling her that her book is totally ridiculous and nonsensical is basically saying that her beliefs and personal practices are ridiculous and nonsensical and that her trying to talk about it is harmful.

I remember seeing something on tv about a family that was selling or tossing their stuff, stocking weapons and canned foods for the coming apocalypse in 2012 because they'd read about it online and in some really terrible books. They'd even withdrawn their kids from school, iirc, to teach them survival skills - they wouldn't need an education from a school.

The authors who write about the Mayan calendar predicting the destruction of the world in 2012 simply don't understand the mechanics of what they're talking about. What they're writing might appear reasonable and logical within their own framework, but injecting the actual facts of the calendar, religion, culture, etc that they're talking about shows that they are talking nonsense. But! There's still a community of people who don't know any better and are making sometimes drastic changes to their lives while under the impression from these ignorant writers that they won't have to face the consequences of it.

The authors didn't intend any harm, in general. But that doesn't mean they didn't cause harm. As I mentioned before, simply because they believe it doesn't mean that it's sacrosanct. Now, I don't mean that you should giggle at this woman and tell her she's ridiculous, but you can approach it respectfully and tactfully: "I'm sorry, but this doesn't make sense to me - you see *this* is how *that* works, so *what you're saying* doesn't necessarily follow."  

[TeaDidikai]

I had a pseudo-epiphany. Maybe the fastest bandage we could make would be a new publishing company. It could start with source materials then edit and foot note classic texts in the pagan scene with notations about debunked material. It could publish companion guides to major texts that helped form the modern pagan movement explaining where the flawed logic is, what historical documents show to be flawed and why.

By selling companion books to the fluffy stuff that explains why and how it's fluffy you tap into the market that wants to buy $ilver's books while still giving a proper background for people who are serious about their paganism.

I've always thought that most books have at least something good about them. The problem is that most of the fluffy stuff has so little to them it's not worth the effort. If we put out the effort once and then publish the book explaining the merits and flaws objectively of Cunningham, Ravenwolf etc, we could do some real good.  

[Collowrath]

TeaDidikai

I had a pseudo-epiphany. Maybe the fastest bandage we could make would be a new publishing company. It could start with source materials then edit and foot note classic texts in the pagan scene with notations about debunked material. It could publish companion guides to major texts that helped form the modern pagan movement explaining where the flawed logic is, what historical documents show to be flawed and why.

By selling companion books to the fluffy stuff that explains why and how it's fluffy you tap into the market that wants to buy $ilver's books while still giving a proper background for people who are serious about their paganism.

This occurred to me while I was writing - if you want to combat the tripe put out by Llewellyn you'd probably have to do so yourself, rather than trying to fit into Llewellyn's network; I recognize of course that they have some good stuff too, but there's never enough of the good stuff.

The problem here is getting capital. It's expensive to publish books, I don't know about e-books though. Not to mention, the second you suggest publishing a companion to anything from $ilver I've no doubt she'd sue you into the ground and you'd be remembered forever among the neopagan fluff as some kind of underground Christian trying to restart the Burnynge Thymes. ninja

On a serious note though - you're absolutely right that a fresh face, a whole new publisher, would work freaking wonders if they could get hands on source materials and make them workable for the average new pagan; I wonder how many people curious about Hellenism hear from us, "Pick up the Iliad, some Hesiod, round it out with Walter Burkert's 'Greek Religion'," then take one look at this stuff and say "Oh holy jumping jacks, there's no way..." and then head back to the new age section? it would do wonders if someone could simply make this stuff accessible to the mainstream.

Quote:

I've always thought that most books have at least something good about them. The problem is that most of the fluffy stuff has so little to them it's not worth the effort. If we put out the effort once and then publish the book explaining the merits and flaws objectively of Cunningham, Ravenwolf etc, we could do some real good.

To be fair, Ravenwolf's books have their uses. They're often lengthy - you can use them to work on your biceps. Or, provided you can lug "Teen Witch" off the bookshelf ( sweatdrop ), you can use it to keep your family warm for at least a day. And also, the ink will burn in all the pretty colors! Whoo!

And also as you said, it would do immense good to be able to publish an honest, objective critique of Ravenwolf's work. As I understand, it used to be normal to publish these kinds of critiques, and from what I know of a lot of these books, they're in desperate need of it.  

[too2sweet]

TeaDidikai

I had a pseudo-epiphany. Maybe the fastest bandage we could make would be a new publishing company. It could start with source materials then edit and foot note classic texts in the pagan scene with notations about debunked material. It could publish companion guides to major texts that helped form the modern pagan movement explaining where the flawed logic is, what historical documents show to be flawed and why.

That's something I could definitely agree with, and would be totally in on. I think to start with even something that was just online, either e-books, or even just book review blogs (something like what Sanguina Cruenta has been trying to do lately) would go a long way if it could be properly promoted.

Self-publishing is actually fairly easy to do, and I know places like Lulu.com actually cross promote on Amazon.com for free (and they actually have publishing partnership programs as well though I have no clue the pricing on that sort of thing). So if we had authors willing to follow certain standards - it would be more a matter of promoting it, rather than having to outright publish them.  

[maenad nuri]

Hey, I tell people to pick up Kharis along with the other Hellenic standards. I'm starting to have personal issues with the author, but they have little to do with her books.  

[AniMajor]

Collowrath

I remember seeing something on tv about a family that was selling or tossing their stuff, stocking weapons and canned foods for the coming apocalypse in 2012 because they'd read about it online and in some really terrible books. They'd even withdrawn their kids from school, iirc, to teach them survival skills - they wouldn't need an education from a school.

The authors who write about the Mayan calendar predicting the destruction of the world in 2012 simply don't understand the mechanics of what they're talking about. What they're writing might appear reasonable and logical within their own framework, but injecting the actual facts of the calendar, religion, culture, etc that they're talking about shows that they are talking nonsense. But! There's still a community of people who don't know any better and are making sometimes drastic changes to their lives while under the impression from these ignorant writers that they won't have to face the consequences of it.

The authors didn't intend any harm, in general. But that doesn't mean they didn't cause harm. As I mentioned before, simply because they believe it doesn't mean that it's sacrosanct. Now, I don't mean that you should giggle at this woman and tell her she's ridiculous, but you can approach it respectfully and tactfully: "I'm sorry, but this doesn't make sense to me - you see *this* is how *that* works, so *what you're saying* doesn't necessarily follow."

But then you still run into the problems of getting rid of books because someone has harmed someone else through knowledge in the books. People have harmed others over phrases from books like the Bible, but it would be ridiculous to say that it should be removed and replaced with a much more accurate, better researched version.

Also, I think it's easier and cheaper to get stuff published in e-book form and sold on places like Amazon than getting it published in traditional book form. It might also be immediately do-able, too, provided you (in general) were willing to put together a book.  

[Collowrath]

maenad nuri

Hey, I tell people to pick up Kharis along with the other Hellenic standards. I'm starting to have personal issues with the author, but they have little to do with her books.

I think I might know what you mean.

I picked up Kharis about a year ago - AFTER trudging through Burkert and source texts. It's definitely the kind of book I think me and Tea are talking about, a short book built for the mainstream, but it's serious about its topic and it's good.  

[Collowrath]

AniMajor

But then you still run into the problems of getting rid of books because someone has harmed someone else through knowledge in the books. People have harmed others over phrases from books like the Bible, but it would be ridiculous to say that it should be removed and replaced with a much more accurate, better researched version.

I would say that I don't necessarily think that religious texts are sacrosant either when they make empirical claims about the nature of the world or the things/people/events in it. I don't think at all that it's ridiculous to challenge the Bible on its claims that, say, the moon produces its own light. It doesn't. The knowledge that the moon doesn't produce its own light but acts (simplistically) as a mirror should be made available and it should be known that the Bible in this case is wrong. (This says nothing about its spiritual teachings- those can't be addressed in this way.)

Along those same lines, I can only challenge the factual aspects of the woman's book or of those of apocalyptic theorists. If the theology conflicts with that established in the religion they attempt to portray? Of course it should be debated. If the woman insists that her angel magnets will cure someone's leukemia, I certainly want to make sure someone doesn't die because they fell for it.

Quote:

Also, I think it's easier and cheaper to get stuff published in e-book form and sold on places like Amazon than getting it published in traditional book form. It might also be immediately do-able, too, provided you (in general) were willing to put together a book.

I don't know much of anything about it, but it definitely seems like actual paper books are expensive to print, and the logistics appears to be half nightmarish. I don't know a thing about e-books.

I think I'll do some poking around in the morning, will report back. smile  

[TeaDidikai]

So maybe doing something with Lulu and an approval stamp might work?  

[blindfaith^_^]

AniMajor

Also, I think it's easier and cheaper to get stuff published in e-book form and sold on places like Amazon than getting it published in traditional book form. It might also be immediately do-able, too, provided you (in general) were willing to put together a book.

Yes, you can e-publish for free over at smashwords. You can format the books for amazon, sony and nook there as well and set your own prices (if any). The problem is promoting the work, since you need to do your own marketing.

I think Barnes and Noble also lets you e-publish now, but I'm not 100% on how that works because I haven't kept up to date with it.

While I find misinformation annoying, I don't think that books can be blamed for this problem entirely. I mean people buy them because they say whatever that person wants to hear, which often times is a whole lot of nothing, but a "you're very special and elite" nothing all the same.

You could probably start an academic pagan movement and it would be particularly easy in the world of e-ink to do so as long as you had outlets to advertise to a larger pagan audience. Heck is could be a slew of research based religious books of all kind if you wanted to go that way.