I mean, same friend!!!!! You speak the truth 🔥

Sanderson isn’t just a church member. He’s part of the faculty at BYU which prohibits “Same-sex romantic behavior” as part of their honor code.

To say nothing of the title XI lawsuit, the school’s mistreatment of students who experience sexual harassment and sexual assault.

I also think some of indie's success comes because many big white cishet authors are less likely to screen themselves for sensitivity issues or to write about marginalization with much materiality. Which aligns with the recent shift towards conservative culture.

Because there's no way to meet everyone's extremely personal expectations if a higher quality = closer to perfection, since perfection is subjective.

It also is interesting because the most successful indie folks are still business-first. But the parasocial relationship obscures that.

So what I (personally) have noticed is readers are significantly more likely to see indie books through an individualistic, personal lens. And I think this makes it harder on trad books now versus when self-pub was seen as a very different landscape.