Ten ways to free yourself of the 'Neo-Liberal' ideology endemic to modern publishing, or Ten ways to destroy the 'brand' status of your literary output:
1) Produce deliberately imperfect 'literary product' - i.e. defective product - make your story, poem, play etc. perfect except for one major 'defect' that will render it unsaleable.
2) Deliberately publish photos of yourself that highlight wrinkles, acne, etc. Make youself ugly, or otherwise unacceptable as a possible 'brand' name author. If you are older deliberately 'show your age'. Plastic surgery and all other forms of 'product upgrades' etc. are absolutely out!!
3) Criticise 'big names' associated with the circus that is modern 'culture' - describe them as ego-obsessed human 'products' that you have no interest in and no desire to meet, etc ... Be completely indifferent, critical and sarcastic about the star system (highlight their inflated incomes and general inauthenticity) in your writings so that any intelligent agent or publicity wing of a publishing house will worry about the 'legal repercussions' etc. associated with taking you on ...
4) Cultivate a liking for 'silence' and 'boredom' - also try to be 'uncreative', 'unimaginative' and 'non-unique' - deliberately attempt to 'bore' your readers ... forcing them to stop reading early and thus move on to a product worthy of their appetites for consuming 'literature' ...
5) Be over-elaborate, too keen, in your attempts to market and sell and promote and move your books ... advertise 'SALE NOW ON!' 'GET IT WHILE IT LASTS!' 'CUT PRICE POETRY HERE!' 'BUY TEN, GET ONE FREE STORY!', 'FREE SOCKS WITH EVERY PURCHASE OF THIS NOVEL!' etc. on the back cover of your book to remind readers that in truth all literature these days is sold by marketing departments who see no difference between literature AND toothpaste ... and god forbid that any writer these days would really want to overturn the system that brings them gravy ...
6) Refuse to provide any biographical details that might open you up to 'analysis' (by Neo-Freudians or Dr Phil) - if you've done anything interesting, or experienced anything extraordinary in your life ... or if you've had breakdowns, break-ups or smash-ups ... deliberately conceal these things from the media, the public, etc. BEFORE you get famous. Refuse to make a spectacle of your private life! In short give the feature writers nothing to write about ... try to become 'uninteresting'. Modern publishing is only interested in 'EXTROVERTS' thus ... make it obvious your an INTROVERT and you'll be 'de-branded ...
7) If you write longer narratives - novels, screenplays, plays ... completely ignore the 'Vogler Arc' and write completely contrary to the recommendations in 'Story' ... no Hollywood film deals for you! While you're at it confess to being completely bored and indifferent about Hollywood and the L.A. lifestyle ...
8) Be scrupululously political, critical of a range of oppressors (there are many these days to choose from) ... be tediously, continuously, arcimonioulsy POLITICAL in every encounter you have with the media ... quote whole passages from the 'New Internationalist' to interviewers, radio announcers, TV people, biographers, etc. ... Scrupulously avoid 'single issues' - the favoured approach of 'culture' brand enhancement merchants AND instead critique everything! In particular, be 'unpatriotic' toward your particular nation and any oppressive foreign policies enacted on 'others' by your military ... Very effective at getting you 'debranded'.
NB: if you have trouble being 'political' try to be genuinely 'intellectual' instead - i.e. recite long segments out of Habermas' 'Theory of Communicative Action Vol 2', and in German ... or Derrida or Horkheimer, or Kant ... Kant is always good these days ... at your interviewers ... Depth is out these days ... image and surface is everything ... so to de-brand yourself be deliberately 'deep' ...
9) Plan a harmless literary hoax (preferably exhibiting a sense of humour) involving multiple Authorial characters for yourself such that your work is split between too many 'brands' to make you of use to publishers! Google the 'Ern Mallee Affair' for guidelines - the authors of that particular Australian literary scandal gave their copyright away ... which leads us to:
10) Relinquish various levels of copyright ownership over your work ... but in a way that doesn't allow anyone else (read 'oligarchic multinational publisher') to profit from your work ... otherwise it kinda defeats the purpose! Google 'Creative Commons' for details of how to do this ...
PRODUCT WARNING: the ten steps discussed above do not gurantee that you will become 'De-branded' ... if you are an unknown they may even lead to you becoming 'well-known' ... if you are already well-known they may lead to you becoming a 'spectacle' following the rules of Jean Baudrillard's various stages of the simulacra ... if this happens to you ... hammer away at point 8 above until they're even afraid to depict you in short out of context sound bites!!
