I wrote last week about a publishing deal for my book Breaking The Weak Link. It took almost two weeks to uncloak the fact that the otherwise legitimate publishing company was employing a scam technique known as “pay to play” on me. It’s a deal (at least, in this case) where the publisher requires the author to pay money upfront for marketing services to “prove” that the book has potential. The publisher gets to test the waters for a book on the author’s dime.
It’s a scam. At the very least, the publicist, hired by the publisher (so…kickbacks?), makes money. Let’s say the $20,000 worth of publicity works. Now the publisher says, “We’ll take your book. We need you to cough up $25,000 to print the first 5,000 copies.” This is followed by more marketing costs and more printing and shipping costs, not to mention the significant percentage the publisher keeps. Travel associated with the book signings and media tours? Do you have American Express?
Looking through the telescope from my Distant Perspective, it saddens me that business practices like these have become normalized. I see a world filled with distrust, doubt and fear. What used to be a good-faith transaction between a customer and a business has become fraught with little extra charges, scam add-ons like extended warranties (good luck with that), the need to h ave a paid subscription, and any other surcharge they can think of. There was a time when these scam-ish practices were frowned upon. Now they are standard fare.
Breaking The Weak Link - Watch the full trailer and buy the book. Just click here.
I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. Our societal leadership, business management, certainly our political governance, have all become corrupted shells devoid of the moral fiber that used help keep their shape. Criminality has become the new status symbol. Companies that rely on old-fashioned honesty can’t compete, and they are left with the choice of becoming corrupt, or becoming fossils. Rooting for the guy who deploys a bitter edge poisoned with a tincture of hatred has become a national pastime in the U.S., and the country seems proud of it.
The upshot of it is that, even when experiencing something good, we can no longer fully enjoy it. Instead, of cheering, we are looking for the hammer to drop. When the book deal was presented to me, my three seconds of happy excitement gave way to weeks of doubt and distrust. To this very moment, I don’t really know if that would have been the book deal of a lifetime for me, or a one-way ticket down a financial rabbit hole.
Even if it had been a really good deal for me, I wouldn’t be able to celebrate because my mind is calibrated to instantly start looking for the traps. Gone is the hope for a good deal, ground to little bits by the doubt surrounding our modern-day lack of ethics.
For all of the advances in human civilization, our greatest failure has been the inability to create a society in which positive experiences can simply be enjoyed for exactly what they are. And isn’t that a shame.
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