On Author Contrivances
Falling in love with your cute book title and peppering your pages with its references is understandable. It also irritates your readers.
Say that you coin a clever phrase that explains a cultural and business phenomenon. It perfectly encapsulates something that most of us are feeling. The neologism then enters the zeitgeist and even goes viral. The Macquarie Dictionary even declares it the word of the year.
Cory Doctorow pulled off this rare feat in 2022 with enshittification. If you've never heard of him, Doctorow is an accomplished author who has displayed a consistent history of moving nonfiction books.
You needn't run a large publishing house to see dollar signs. Lo and behold, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It just dropped. Given the buzz around his word and his track record, I'm surprised that the title didn't arrive sooner.
Enshittification will surely sell a boatload of copies, but it's not without its flaws. Today, I'll describe its biggest—one I've seen other nonfiction authors make over the years.