All of us are familiar with the adage “The pen is mightier than the sword.” This has been true since the first story was put into writing — whether in hieroglyphics or cave paintings or words in any language. For the writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, that meant a prison sentence in a Siberian gulag, for writing the truth as he saw it.
All writers face the question: “Do I write what I believe or do I write what is popular?” As Steven Pressfield put it in his book, The War of Art, paraphrasing Robert McKee:
…When the hack sits down to work, he doesn’t ask himself what’s in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for.
The hack condescends to his audience. He thinks he’s superior to them. The truth is, he’s scared to death of them or, more accurately, scared of being authentic in front of them, scared of writing what he really feels or believes…. He’s afraid it won’t sell….
Even more crucial to the writer’s integrity is fear of censure.
As a publisher of independent authors, Eres Books takes its role of facilitating the publication of our authors’ works as an essential contribution to their search for a bigger truth — not the acceptable doctrine.
Although our principle publishing arena is fiction with a positive outlook, humor, women’s history, and happily ever after romance, we have faced the same challenges as our authors. Eres Books supports the decisions our authors make regarding their work.
“All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions.” – George Bernard Shaw