A few days ago a reader of mine reached out to me to see if I was still working (and probably to check and see if I was still alive.) They also asked me if I would ever go back to publishing under one of the bylines I used during the twenty years I worked for big publishers in NYC.
The subject hasn't come up very often in the eight years since I went freelance and became a partner in a small independent publisher. I've made more money on my own than I ever did with an agent and working for NY, so there's that. I do not miss being in the spotlight and all the ugliness that comes with it; that dimension of my career was particularly brutal for me. I should never have gone the way I did; indy publishing is where I really belong -- but it didn't really exist back in my day.
Here's some advice from a shy person who put up with all that nonsense for two decades: if NY ever offers you a contract, and promises that they'll develop your brand, promote your work, make connections for you, yaddah yaddah yaddah, they're just saying that stuff to get you to sign the contract. Also, read every line of that contract at least three times. Then read it again and maybe get an attorney to read it.
Publishing is very different today than what it was when I worked for NY. Anyone can be an author; my next door neighbor self-published his own religious book. Amazon destroyed the gate keeping that prevented writers from realizing their dreams, and I think it's great that anyone who wants to put a book out there can self-publish now. The fact that I had to run the gauntlet of unsolicited submissions and seemingly endless rejections for ten years before I finally landed a contract and got my work in print doesn't make me bitter. After all, I'm a dinosaur. :)
I wrote back to that reader and thanked them sincerely for their interest. It's nice to be remembered. I also let them know as gently as I could that no, I wouldn't be writing or publishing for profit under any of my old bylines again. Taking advice from British Admiral Baron Sir John Arbuthnot Fisher, I didn't apologize or explain. During the 20 years I did publish under those bylines I put out more work than any other pro I know. That should be enough for anyone.
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And don't get me started on visual artists. They forego any skill at Photoshop and simply rely on AI to do the work, with no care as to where AI got its visuals to create the new art.
I dabbled in making some free AI generated cover art, just to see how it would go -- and wrote about it on the blog -- and that struck me as kind of horrifying, in that it's already near pro level art. It made me decide not to use it because I'd rather use art from flesh and blood artists, but very few writers are going to share my opinion, especially those who want to save money on production.