This entire interview between Everett Bogue and Thom Chambers is great, but this particular response from Thom really made me think (I had to read the last two paragraphs a few times to let it soak in):
Ev: How do you decide what is important enough to make it past your high filter?
Thom: The lack of gatekeepers online means that we’re living in the age of the amateur. It’s great that you don’t need anyone’s permission to create or to publish anymore, but the unspoken consequence of this is that there’s a lot of low quality stuff out there.
That’s not necessarily the creator’s fault, either – now you need to be your own writer, editor, designer, publisher, marketer, promoter, customer services department, PR department, and all the rest. It’s rare for anyone to be capable at all those things.
That said, the gatekeepers were there for a reason – to keep out the dross.
For every JK Rowling who was foolishly turned away by a dozen publishers, there are a thousand correct calls about authors who simply aren’t up to scratch.
The way I choose who gets through? Professionalism. There’s a bit of a craft stall mentality at the moment online – “I’ll set up a store and try and sell some stuff if I can, it’s not particularly pretty or grammatically correct or anything, but I’m only one person so that’s okay. As long as I’m ‘myself’ then people will forgive me”.
But there are others who set up with a boutique mentality – “I’m small now, sure, but I’m high quality and I take pride in every aspect of what I do and anyone who visits can see that I’m going places”. Both are small, niche people trying to make an impact but the mentality is poles apart. Within a few seconds of visiting someone’s site or reading their work, you can see which attitude they have and whether they’ve actually got a future and are worth your attention.