In the sprawling metropolis of literary indifference, where the faint glimmers of serendipity often drown in the cacophony of dollar signs and marketing madness, we find our heroes: writers, injured and battered, whose masterpieces fell victim to the unforgiving tide of fate. Picture it: 2008, the great recession looms over the world like a dark cloud threatening every fiber of creativity with economic despair. Money wasn’t just tight; it was suffocating. Debuts that deserved the spotlight were tossed aside like yesterday’s news, their pages not even a whisper against the whirlwind of bank failures and impending doom.

Imagine a passionate author, manuscript in hand, ready to unleash their creation upon a starving world, only to discover it will slip through the fabric of reality like grains of sand. No agents, no publishing house to back it. No tricks up their sleeve. Books flopped onto shelves and vanished, ignored by a populace too preoccupied with surviving to take a chance on a no-name writer.

Then, let’s leap forward to 2014, a time where money trickled like molasses and anyone without a bazillion-dollar budget was doomed to obscurity. Flashy marketing campaigns were the lifeblood of authors’ success. The industry’s elitism conjured a modern-day elitist society, where only those curated by the right publicists, and packaged in glittering wrappers, dared draw a breath. If your name wasn’t splashed across the glossy pages of major magazines, you might as well be a ghost, wandering aimlessly in no man’s land, lost among the skyscrapers of Chicago, where art once flourished but now wilts under financial scrutiny.

The snobbery of it all! You’d think the literary world would be teeming with sincerity, with people clamoring toward the written word as if it were the last bastion of truth. But alas, it is riddled with bigots and elitists who can’t spare a second look for an author without an Ivy League pedigree or a glossy cover catchier than a viral meme. For them, the worth of a book is not determined by narrative quality but by its marketability, and a gaping chasm of intellectual hate yawns wide at their feet, as a chorus of hatred echoes through the halls of privilege.

Yet here lies the crux: those who dared to crack open the covers of these neglected novels—the handful of souls who persist bravely against the tide—found beauty in their words. They connected with characters, experienced profound emotions. Each reader a light flickering in the oppressive darkness, leaving behind echoes of “Why doesn’t anyone else see this?” These authors didn’t churn out mainstream fare; they bled onto the pages, garnished with grit and authenticity, only to be ignored, shelved with the dust of disdain.

Now, about this ridiculous boycott of Amazon and its omnipotent presence in the publishing world—it does more harm than good, hurting the very authors these “boycotters” claim to support. Who suffers when you boycott the blue dildo? The billion-dollar company? Hardly. It’s the struggling author, wrestling with the fact that their voice was drowned out before it even began—only to find it strangled yet again by the best political intentions of a misguided elite.

Good literature, real literature, doesn’t need a blindingly hefty budget to resonate. It thrives on connection, expression, and raw emotion. And as the currents of disinterest toss these books aside, what remains is an insatiable thirst for acknowledgment that curls around each neglected spine like a serpent coiling tighter by the hour. So, read them! Challenge the norms! Embrace the stories begging for a chance, because literature is not just for the few at the top—it’s for every bleeding heart daring to tell the truth.