We Are All Gatekeepers Now

We're still beating up on Laurie Gough and her contention that bypassing the gatekeepers who live east of the Hudson River hurts written words.


No caption necessary.

When I pointed out that we're all gatekeepers now, Jeff Duntemann (author of the excellent Ten Gentle Opportunities) responded by pointing out:

@NotJonMollison As readers, we've always been. The difference is that we now have to be systematic (and unrelenting) about it.

— Jeff Duntemann(@JeffDuntemann) January 1, 2017

He's absolutely right.  Word of mouth has always been a cherished aspect of marketing, and bad word of mouth can easily overcome even the most sophisticated advertising campaign.  Look no further than the recent Ghostbusters debacle which resulted in a very different kind of hysterical response than the original.

For the record, my gatekeepers are legion, and I'm always on the lookout for more of them.  If you love a particular style of work, and if you want to see more of it produced, then you should become a gatekeeper, too.  You're a fan, after all, and one of the things that fans do is talk about the things they love.  The more you talk about the things you enjoy, the more people will find those things, and the more incentive people will have to make more of it.

The dirty little secret about increasing your influence as a gatekeeper is that it's really easy to do.  it just takes a little time and dedication.  All you have to do is start showing up in a few blog comments, find the blogger's Twitter feed, and join in the discussions.  You don't need to build a full blown blog or start up your own literary criticism magazine.  Just join in the discussion, and you to can help keep the gates open for the style of works you love.

Here's a quick list of the guys who make for a good starting point (in no particular order):

• Daddy Warpig
• Hooc Ott
• Cirsova
• Brian Neiemier
• Pulp Librarian
• (((H.P.)))

It's a rolling conversation that spans dozens of links, threads, and blogs, and it's a blast.  If you join in, you'll start seeing familiar faces and before you know it, you'll find your very own team of gatekeepers blowing open doors to works that you probably would have missed out on if you relied on the recommendations of snooty New York literati types.

Even better, they'll all have you to act as a gatekeeper to help them find the same.

Find Your Own Gatekeeper

Look at this thing from HuffPo:

It would be easy to go after the low-hanging fruit here.  This woman you've never heard of has written three memoirs.  Three.  Because her life is just that interesting.  She is a "journalist". Because writing a blog on HuffPo counts.  The obvious self-contradiction of a blogger sneering at self-publishing.

 

Instead of dwelling on these things, let's look at a far more mature and thorough takedown by Richard Alan Chandler.  He doesn't go for the easy insults to an obviously flawed piece, he cuts to the heart of the matter by focusing on how her wrong-headedness about gatekeepers amounts to her lament that things are better for readers today:

No, my point is that she is wrong about the lack of gatekeepers. There are actually more gatekeepers now than there are editors and publishers and agents in the entire publishing industry.

I’m talking about you, the reader – both individually and collectively. Individually, because you now have a vastly broader range of works to choose from. And collectively, through your actions on a site like Amazon. When you and all the other readers go to Amazon, you are informing each other about what is good or bad by what you buy, or not, as reflected by the Amazon ranking (conveniently divided by subgenre), and what else is good through the “Also Bought” mechanism. And individually, again, through your star ratings and reviews. Your actions are both informed by those who have gone before you, and they guide those who come after you.

To which I would add that the changing nature of gatekeepers puts the burden on the reader of choosing his own gatekeepers.  And that the process of finding, following, and supporting your chosen gatekeeper crew need not be an onerous one.  You already enjoy reading, and most of the gatekeepers out there are communication via the written word.  So if you dedicate just a few moments of your day's reading to the social media output of even just a handful of trusted individuals, you'll be able to find works that target your interests like a laser beam.

2017: The Year I Come Out of the Box

Even my wargames are pulp.
This rocket ship was built for
15mm sci-fi miniature battles.

If you direct your eyes to the left, over there on the sidebar, you can spot a tag in the cloud called, "wargame related". It's no secret that I'm an avid wargamer from way back. I played D&D back when I still had baby-teeth in my mouth, and even dabbled in a bit of ASL from time to time, but my true love has always been miniature wargaming.  I haven't talked about it very much on Seagull Rising because I have another outlet for showing off my painting, modeling, and wargaming talents.

It's a little blog called War In A Box, which I published under the nom de jeu de guerre, Warren Abox.  You can read a little bit about why I'm coming out of the box in this post.

The year of our Lord 2017 looks to be an incredible year. The opportunities presenting themselves to me right out of the January starting gate are mind-blowing. In addition to collaborating with one of my favorite authors on the background for a skirmish wargame, I'll be hosting a semi-weekly column over at the Castalia House blog alongside such luminaries as Jeffro Johnson, P. Alexander, Josh Young, and Morgan (the man with no last name).  The first one went live yesterday.  They've got big plans for that blog, and I'm excited to be a part of it.

To make a long story short, thanks to Jeffro, it's growing increasingly difficult to maintain a separation between my thoughts on gaming and on literature.  While I'll hang onto the moniker "Warren Abox" for the purposes of forum continuity, that alias will pretty much be an open secret between you, me, and anyone else who really cares about these things.  To be frank, I don't have the energy nor the time to sustain multiple internet personas, and opening this up should simplify everything for me on the back end.

Understand, this blog will remain largely unchanged.  I'll leave the wargame heavy posts over at War In A Box, while this blog will stay largely focused on writing, literature, and general cultural critiques, with only the occasional forays into role-playing games, board games, and wargames.

Meanwhile, that semi-weekly column that I'll be contributing to the Castalia House Blog kicks off on Wednesday.  If you've ever thought about attempting to take up the miniature and brush, but been intimidated by the front-end effort at starting a miniature wargame, you won't want to miss out on this series.