The censoring of books is completely out of control, becoming a cancer gripping the publishing world that needs to be stopped. Will you help do something?
Imagine if you are a beautiful person whom other people adore.
Now, imagine someone coming in and making changes to your appearance.
First it is small stuff — your earrings get swapped out for a less shiny pair,
toe nail polish color is changed, pants replace your short, body-forming skirt,
and your long, flowing hair is crop-cut.
These changes were made at night, without your permission. You are told society
will now like you even more, that a new generation will come to see you as
attractive.
Folks, this is not a horror movie or The Twilight Zone. It is about the terror spree that the book publishing world is on. So-called sensitivity censors are hacking our award-winning, best-selling authors to death.
The latest assault on our books comes from the publisher of kids’ horror books author R.I. Shine, Scholastic, whose Goosebumps series is the second-biggest book series behind Harry Potter. Apparently, scores of changes were recently made to dozens of his books without his knowledge or consent. This is on the heels of publisher-forced, writer-estate approvals to permanently harm books by Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and Dr. Seuss.
WTF is happening across the literary landscape?
The book world is imploding, censoring from within. The government is not the tyrant here. It is a handful of self-appointed, overpaid word butchers and culture-killing hacks who wield their sharpened scalpels at any collection of words they deem worthy of execution. In the shadow of darkness, books are being republished in secret and shame, having been ground through a tool humanity has seen before, usually in places that are torn asunder from war, revolution, or dictatorship.
But now it is happening in a divided but peaceful America. The vast majority don’t want books violated and mutilated. We have a free marketplace to decide what people will write, buy, or read. We don’t need mercenaries taking a hatchet to our treasured works to somehow save us from some unknown or non-existent enemy.
What will we do about this hysteria that is gripping publishers like a mad fever?
So far, very little. I fear we are all just standing by as if we hope publishers will just come to their senses. We must not act as if we can’t do anything when we can do a lot.
What do you do when there is a bully? Rather than be picked off one by one, we
must gang together and fight back. This means we wage an all-out war, a united
front, against any and all who want to change one word or comma in published
books — especially if a living author does not freely make such a choice.
A war is costly and there will be blood.
I call for a boycott of all butchered books. It may seem like we are punishing
authors, but we are liberating them. No one should have to read diluted,
doctored books. Preserve our cultural history!
First, we need a database to track and list books that were altered.
Second, publishers and authors or their estates must be contacted and asked to
revert their works back to their original forms.
Third, an information campaign must take hold so that teachers, librarians, and
bookstores know the ugly truth and avoid stocking the fake books.
Fourth, lawsuits should be filed on any technicality possible. Wars are won
when money is lost.
Fifth, authors should demand editorial control
over their books, post-publishing, so that no one can force a book to be
violated. Write letters. Demonstrate outside a publisher’s offices. Protest at
libraries. Make your voice heard and presence known.
A pressure campaign from social and traditional media must be orchestrated.
Rallies, protests, boycotts… no more sitting back and just throwing our hands
up. Public outrage must lead to change.
By the way, these edits don’t really help anyone. If you edit out words that
reflect imperfections you still don’t remove the flawed characteristic. Society
is flawed. Books reflect that. We can’t make believe all is good and normal
when it isn’t.
What message are you sending to society or to writers? In this woke world we
would never have battles of good and evil, of characters coping or overcoming
challenges or understanding that something like obesity is not healthy. We
think that no one can handle truth, adverse situations, or unflattering
characteristics. We are creating a distorted fantasy world that none of us
bought a ticket to.
Informed and empowered readers should stand up to publishers who act as if they are Chinese government censors or Russian ministers of truth. We must protect copyrighted classics from becoming rewritten by publishers who think they know better — and who want to force a nonsense brainwashing agenda upon us.
If you care about writing, cultural history,
and American freedom, join together to stop the corporate publishing tyrants
from mangling our literary treasures!
Need Book Marketing Help?
Brian Feinblum, the founder of this award-winning
blog, can be reached at brianfeinblum@gmail.com He is available to help authors promote their
story, sell their book, and grow their brand. He has over 30 years of
experience in successfully helping thousands of authors in all genres. Let him
be your advocate, teacher, and motivator!
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About Brian Feinblum
Brian Feinblum should be followed on Twitter
@theprexpert. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2023. Born and
raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and
Ferris, a black lab rescue dog. His writings are often featured in The Writer
and IBPA’s The Independent. This
award-winning blog has generated over 3.3 million pageviews. With 4,400+ posts
over the past dozen years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs by
BookBaby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018
as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by
www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.” For the past three decades,
including 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book
publicity firm, and two jobs at two independent presses, Brian has worked with
many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with
best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen,
Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard,
Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C.
Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler. He recently hosted a
panel on book publicity for Book Expo America, and has spoken at ASJA,
Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction
Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland)
Writers Association, APEX, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association.
His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA
Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester)
and The Washington Post. He has been featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami
Herald. For more information, please consult: www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum.
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