A restaurateur requested of some patrons to add their honest restaurant reviews to Trip Advisor to help build word about the relatively new restaurant. Hmmm. There must be a parallel between restaurants and writing. Let’s explore.

Imagine if there was a industry-wide restaurant review system where a group of food raters would tell the entrepreneurs if their food was good enough with which to open a restaurant? What if a wannabe restaurateur had to submit each dish to the committee for them to taste and approve and then only a small percentage, completely at the discretion of the committee, would be allowed to sell to the public?

Of course this sounds ridiculous. Who are these raters to tell people what they will like or what should be offered to sell in a restaurant?

But isn’t this exactly how the traditional publishing industry has been controlling the written word all along? There are the experts, the publishers, the agents, the editors who exclusively have the knowledge about what will sell and what won’t, about what is good writing and what isn’t.

In a restaurant, the ‘proof is in the pudding’ so to speak. If a patron has good food and a good experience, then word will spread, notwithstanding some hoity-toity newspaper food critic. Taste and experience is supreme.

Much to the chagrin of the stiff-coats at the traditional publishers who snub their noses at most fledgling writers, that’s also the new way of the publishing industry.  Writers no longer have to jump through hoops, but they can take their ‘wares’ directly to the ‘consumers’ and if it’s tasty, then they have a success on their hands.

Let the people decide! Let the restaurant patrons decide if a restaurant will sink or float.

Let the readers decide if an author is worth reading or not.

What a great time to be a writer!

Which restaurant tonight?