If I ruled the world...

[ladyofastolat]

When I am supreme ruler of the universe, the following things will be declared illegal forthwith:

- Books with one word titles. Exemptions will very probably be granted when the word in question is sufficiently unusual, but common words are right out. Calling your book by a word ignored by most search engines (such as "it") shall lead to punishment more dreadful than any man has ever dreamt.

- Authors who insist on spelling their name in an unexpected fashion. If your readers are going to ask for you as "Susan" then you will jolly well be forced to spell your name "Susan", not "Soozun". (Made-up example to protect the guilty.)

- Books that appear to be called on thing - e.g. "Let's talk about recycling" - but actually secretly call themselves something else - "Recyling", which happens to be in the "Let's talk about" series - and don't bother to tell anyone.

- Vacuous celebrities with no talent who still manage to get themselves publishing deals, which they use to "write" books telling 6 year old girls that beauty is everything.

Actually, on second thoughts:

- Stupid, idiotic, poorly designed search systems. Once they're banned, I might even allow the others to become legal again. Except for the last one. There's no excuse for that.

Comments

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

I think it's both, though. Yes, the immediate cause is badly-briefed cover artists, but the fact that their default image of a 'heroine' is beautiful nonetheless bears witness to an agenda (conscious or not) by both publishers and society in general.