Posthuman Blues

Venture capitalist rewrites the starving-author story

"The Silicon Valley venture capitalist wrote his novel, founded a company to publish it and then launched one of the biggest and most colorful individual book giveaways ever."

In the not-so-distant future, the majority of titles on bookstore shelves will be written by pretentious assholes who can't write (which, now that I think about it, sounds just like now . . . ) Once reputable reviewers like Kirkus start reviewing self-published books for a fee -- which is already happening -- it's only a matter of time until a bigger "fee" wins the author a better review. Which means bigger sales to the lit-trend pseudo-intelligentsia.

Within a few years, authors who prospered (or at least made ends meet) under the old system are back to reading their work in ill-lit coffeehouses while the independently wealthy throw huge signings and cruise around in limos tossing free copies of their novels/memoirs to the sullen masses on the sidewalk.

Erickson. Pynchon. Womack. Gibson. Vonnegut. Who?