I dealt with alot of artists and writers at one point, and I just ended up thinking that the reason alot (not all, obviously) of people have agents, or PR people, or dealers, or anything to do with the business side of things is because they think that it's beneath them.
And I just think, well, you're employing these people, but you think that work is beneath you, what does that mean you think of them? Ultimately it means that you, as the artist, think you're better than other people, and that's just such shite. There's no such thing as purity of art.
(I think that a lot of the tripe that passes for fiction is abominable - the novel these days seems to be the easiest artform for completely talentless, prententious charlatans with nowt to say to get by in, for some reason. Probably because people read less, and thus think "ooh, a 500 page novel - must be good if he/she can write that much").
Which leads to the conclusion that a lot of artists and writers are divorced from the real world, which is why so many of them are absolute ivory-tower, masturbatory gash (I think that a lot of the tripe that passes for fiction is abominable - the novel these days seems to be the easiest artform for completely talentless, prententious charlatans with nowt to say to get by in, for some reason. Probably because people read less, and thus think "ooh, a 500 page novel - must be good if he/she can write that much").
Yes, get thy work out there, and save the literary world from gash.
On the flipside, the terrifying thing about music, especially since it got democratised, is how many AMAZINGLY talented people are out there.
Yeah, really, definitely. It's why it's really important, politically, to not have an agent or not be represented, to show and say to other people that it is possible, regardless of 'success'.
Artists are divorced from the real world though cos of the colleges I think, which is to do with the amount of money each college gets through citations in published papers. Each citation gets the college accredited money, thus you get this system of people publishing work about people they know, in order to get the course they are teaching on money. Thus you only get people teaching about a very narrow strain of artists. Does that make sense? Maybe someone else can explain it better.
You're so right about music, and there's no reason to think it's not the same in other media. Or maybe music is exceptional? We shall see.
I don't think you should. Only cranks self-publish. You don't want to look like a crank. You'll be one of those people who walk into bookshops with their life's work in a plastic bag, trying to sell to unsuspecting and sometimes dim booksellers.