The junk drawer. I imagine most of us have one, somewhere. I mean, an actual physical junk drawer, not a metaphorical junk drawer, although we probably have those, too.
One of the things about the junk drawer is that most people (probably) dislike resorting to searching it. But you know there's good stuff in there. All the stuff you can't decide what to do with–it's in there. Right down to the extra soy sauce packets from the Chinese takeaway. The rubber bands. The twist-ties. All eminently useful–and sometimes even critically important.
As we are surrounded by more and more “stuff,” I'm afraid I begin to develop the junk drawer mindset. I don't know what to do with this THING, and I can't stop what I'm doing long enough to really think about it, so I keep it. Gradually, my space begins to resemble a slightly tidier junk drawer. My mind begins to resemble a junk drawer.
And what I've been thinking is that Amazon.com's book selection is starting to resemble a junk drawer.
I'm grateful for the self-publishing revolution, I really am. I plan to publish a number of books, and I got bored waiting for traditional publishing to tell me exactly what they didn't like about my submissions. So self-publishing is great for me.
But have you looked at some of the books on Amazon.com lately? I have. And the amount of junk on there is just unbelievable. How does one find anything decent in all the clutter?
What's the answer to this? Because these titles don't take up actual space, Amazon.com seems to think it's okay to add more and more junk. But how does one search through all that junk? Okay, if you know exactly what you're looking for, you can use search terms. Just like if I know that I need a certain kind of rubber band, I can look for THAT rubber band in the junk drawer.
But even when I think I know what I want (Victorian horror, for example, or yoga how-to), I am still astonished at all the junk. This includes actual attempts at producing Victorian horror or yoga how-to, as well as blatant efforts to put the wrong things into the wrong categories, in order to garner some kind of best-seller status or otherwise game the system.
I wouldn't know. I'm too busy writing to figure it out. All I know is that I dislike this junk drawer mentality more and more.
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