Class Warfare

There’s a split in the writing community.  No, not between writers and publishers, or authors and the audience, but between indie writers and traditionally published writers.  These groups trend towards hating each other, and the warfare between the groups is unlikely to end anytime soon.

Let’s stipulate up front that best-selling traditionally published authors, like Stephen King or JK Rowling, pay very little attention to this war.  They’re at the top of the heap, and like Bahumut in D&D, they’re above the fray of such everyday, mundane matter.  The same cannot be said of those at the top of the indie world since there’s always a chip-on-the-shoulder mentality for that crowd, even if they’re accepted in the mainstream(Andy Weir, EL James, etc).

But most writers aren’t in either stratum, so they turn their fire on each other.  Indie writers tend to view traditionally published writers as lost sheep, slaves to their publishing masters and desperate to say or do anything that will keep themselves in the good graces of their publishing betters.  Traditionally published writers, on the other hand, tend to view their indie siblings as if they’re dunces who simply weren’t talented enough to break through to the traditional world.  After all, if the indie writer was any good, they’d have a traditional publishing contract, right?

This, of course, distracts from the overall purpose of selling books to readers who will enjoy them.  If it’s about exposure, most writers, from both worlds, never get the kind of exposure the cream of the crop gets.  Indie writers view themselves as that undrafted NFL player that makes the team through sheer grit, and traditionally published writers view themselves as Olympians who put in years of work and believe they deserve the inside lane.

What would be nice would be if we could simply come together as writers and swap techniques and ideas without resorting to a form of class warfare.  However, I’m not sure that’s possible given the animosity and condescension that exists between the groups.