During my extensive travels throughout the cyber-asylum known as Facebook, I have noticed that some members have affixed the word “Author” to their profile names, as in “Author John Doe” or “John Doe Author.” When I first observed this phenomenon, I thought that a great many people were named Arthur and that each of them had misspelled it.
Sometimes, the word appears in parenthesis; sometimes the word is “Writer.” Same difference. When the word follows the person’s name, there is seldom a comma, which calls into question the so-called author’s grasp of punctuation.
But never mind that.
Granted, I have not explored all the nooks and crannies of this cyber-wasteland, nor do I have any desire to, but it seems that “Author” is the only term applied in this manner for I have yet to come across anyone called “Appliance Repairman John Doe” or “Jane Doe Neurologist” or “Bob Smith Ramada Inn Concierge” or “President of General Motors Joe Schmo.”
Frankly, if I wished to add a profession to my name, I would not choose “Author,” as this vocation is a lonely practice characterized by many years of toil, endless rewriting, general anonymity, frustratingly inattentive agents, awful reviews, a tragic paucity of groupies save perhaps for the random starry-eyed librarian, and that it seldom produces more than a poverty-level livelihood.
On the bright side, it is a passable form of self-expression when accomplished with style and eloquence and, more importantly, requires only a laptop computer and a cursory knowledge of basic spelling and sentence structure which most people with an ounce of wit can recall from their school days and thus easily reproduce on a grocery list. Or 250 pages filled with words and called “A Novel.” I have noted that many of these so-called novels are published by a company known as “Createspace,” which must be quite profitable as this name appears with amazing frequency.
Is there perchance some glamour or status in being an author that I am not aware of? Is it the librarians?
Now if I were to add a profession to my Facebook moniker, I would choose something really cool, albeit equally far-fetched, such as “Rock Superstar John Blumenthal” or “Owner Of Strip Club Franchise John Blumenthal” or “Yankees Pitching Sensation John Blumenthal” or “Swashbuckling Pirate John Blumenthal,” or “John Blumenthal King of Belgium.”
But “Author”? Surely you jest. Everybody’s a goddamn Author.