Here’s why “you’re not published because your writing is bad” is a terrible argument. 

By Hemingway standards, Dickens is “bad” because he’s too verbose. By Faulkner standards, Hemingway is “bad” because he’s too simple. By modern standards, they’re all bad because they don’t throw you into a conflict within 0.0001 seconds.

So which one of these writers is actually “good”?

Exactly.

There is no objective definition of a “good” book—unless you’re a publishing industry professional.

Instead of publishing many different types of “good books,” the publishing industry churns out a very specific type of “good book”—and a surprising number of bad ones.

Under those constraints, the publishing landscape begins to look something like this.

We’re fighting to merge the green circle with the blue circle—and to restore good literature to our shelves.