January 16, 2012 / alchemyofscrawl

Return to folk art – by people for people

Books, Business, Folk art, Internetz, Monica, Shopping, Television, World Wide Web

I spoke to another Indie author today who was told by the cogs of traditional publishing that they liked the book, but couldn’t ‘market it’. And this is something that I’ve been mulling over for a couple of days. They couldn’t ‘market it’ meaning they couldn’t ‘sell it’, couldn’t ‘commercialize it’, couldn’t make a ‘killing off of it’.

And I got to thinking some more about how we’re all storytellers and we all have a story to tell and we are such a big, diverse, interesting group of people and we’re constantly being bombarded with only what ‘sells’, what can be ‘marketed’, what can be ‘commercialized’. If you thought about it for a couple of minutes, no wonder we’re all a bit goofy.

Then rolls in the Internetz and a company and basically steamrolls the ‘old’ way of doing things under. Turned it into mulch.

People bemoan the fact that local places are closing. I don’t. I have found more of a book community on-line then I ever did at a bookstore. I had more friends and more fun gathered around listening to the Friday Night Players who went from house to house and sang songs where the audience could join in then going to a concert. ‘Remember the lessons you’ve learned and leave all your heartaches behind…’ Thanks Monica!

The only value in ‘marketing’ and ‘selling’ and ‘commercializing’ anything is to make money. Well the Indie movement is finally hitting books in a big way. Now you can give it back to the people. Because that’s where art belongs. And I don’t mean the kind of art that hangs in a museum. I mean the kind of connection when you create something and then let it go to take on a life of it’s own.

Now I don’t take issue with killing things for food because that’s what we do. What makes me ball my eyes out watching the clip is that he had to strap a TV to his chest and stand in the middle of the street just to show people what happens there. The system did whatever they could to make sure that people couldn’t decide for themselves. I’m against that, more than anything else.

The middleman (in all his disguises) is being pushed out and I for one am happy to see him go. We bought something from a local vendor only to have it not work and be treated like crap. We did a *facepalm* and thought why didn’t we check the Internet first? We got a better quality product for half the price.

Will you make a killing or make a living? It doesn’t matter to me. Whatever floats your boat. I’m happy for the journey, all the folks I’ve met and a chance to share something with whoever feels so inclined. To me it’s liberating and akin to experiencing freedom.