>>>I'm not sure what talent *is*; but in the way I use the phrase, at
Interesting thing about authors and publishing. There are shortcuts in these fields that remove the need to struggle; technology removes the hard work and democratizes the process so absolutely everyone can become a published author, with a book for sale on Amazon or B&N dot com. This makes the work more legitimate in the eyes of many. The sad fact is, many, if not most book stores will not stock many of these books because the buyers understand that the author's work likely suffers.
This technology increases the pool of useless works that would never be published ten or fifteen years ago.
A company like PublishAmerica, for example, removes the editorial process, the serious review, the "character, dialog, plot, structure, or various other small subdivisions..." Anyone can write anything, upload it to their "publisher's web site, and start promoting their work. their book(s) will be delivered bound and printed when their book(s) are ordered.
In the case of PA, writers are told that the publishing world is impossible to break into; editors will not likely consider your work for dozens of reasons that on the surface are correct, but misleading, as explained by the typical PA type publisher. The ease of publishing seems to be more important than the quality of the work, in the view of many "writers" that never bothered to investigate how the process is supposed to work. Some of these authors have no "right" to be published because they took the easy road that leads (in the vast majority of cases) to nowhere.
If you accept PA's terms and you decide to use their company, you are indeed a published author, but not in the eyes of most legitimate editors, agents, and publishers.
I am not sure most editors give the writer a free pass on anything. Then again, some might because writing is subjective and it is sometimes difficult to tell what is good, bad, or terrible dialog. I will admit that I read the "Mac Bolan" and "Overload" series. The dialog is often silly, but these books represent a very large series of silly books, all traditionally published.
I suspect that there are a few great books out there that have not been through the traditional publishing process. That is, they are subsidy or self-published. There are thousands of books for sale on the web, written by those that have not struggled in any real way. That is, finding an editor that will consider reading the work, the seemingly endless editing, the months of waiting for a reply, the inevitable rejections, and the other things most authors go through when dealing with a Dell or a Random House.
Many serious writers groups and societies have long lists of "credits" that do not count towards membership. For example, a self-published book will not accepted by some professional organizations as a publishing credit. Regardless of how good the work is, some groups have decided that some writers, no matter how prolific, are likely not worthy of membership. Some people often complain because in their mind, all writers should be free to join the WGA and other such societies and Guilds, because all writers are equal and who are we to judge another writer's effort.
Bob ...
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