I just can't help myself from spreading the word about this masterful article I just read. If any of you have ever scratched your head wondering who the heck Taylor Marsh is and why she is given a mouthpiece, read on.
First of all, the article discusses Taylor Marsh's claim that she is an author. As it turns out:
My Year in Smut is THE Taylor Marsh book. I don't mean it's the best. I mean it's the only one. I mention that because she likes to occasionally mention her status as an author. Her background as an author and her "research" for the book create a kind of implied credibility. They probably shouldn't.When your research is actually your job working for a porn site that's an issue. When you're book is printed by AuthorHouse, that's another issue.
AuthorHouse, previously known as 1st Books, served as publisher for My Year in Smut. Do you know what it takes to get AuthorHouse to print your book? Do you need a good literary agent who can sell them on your manuscript? Do you need a track record as an author? Do you need a knockout manuscript they just can't resist? No. No, you don't. You need a check. Or a major credit card.
AuthorHouse is a self-publishing vanity press. You pay them, they print your book. That's about it. I could take my four-year-old's assorted scribblings and Crayola pieces and transform them into a coffee table book, complete with glowing reviews of each drawing written in the tone of a serious art critic. I could do that for around $500. Would that make John Brown's daugher a serious artist? Not really, huh?
Next, to Taylor Marsh's claim that she is a "radio host":
Taylor Marsh is a radio host. She says so. Everyone says so. It's all over the fucking place. However, you probably haven't heard her in your car on the radio while commuting to work or going to the store. You see, Taylor Marsh isn't on the radio. No one has actually paid her for being on the radio at any time, based on what I can find.Taylor Marsh has a website that looks like it belongs to a radio show host. It's illusion. She's a podcaster. She records a show like the ones they actually broadcast on the radio and makes it available for download.
There is something inherently silly about calling yourself a radio host and garnering credibility as a media figure from it when all you're really doing is taking a few calls from ass-kissing blog readers and converting results into MP3 format. That isn't a radio show.
Radio shows are broadcast. Radio shows, in most cases, have advertisers. Babbling into a $15 Radio Shack microphone in your basement and uploading the results to your website isn't running a radio show. Sorry, it just isn't. You are not a radio host if you do that. You're a podcaster.
But she DID have a radio show at one time, right? Well, sort of. I can understand the confusion. Occasionally she mentions wanting to find a "new home" for her radio show and she discusses her status as a screwed-over radio host when she makes crazily shallow comments about the Fairness Doctrine. Clearly, she had a radio show. Right?
Here's the deal. In 2002, Taylor Marsh went to Las Vegas and became a radio host... Sort of. Judy Proffer (Magpye Media) and Marsh came up with the cash to buy time on KLAV, a Las Vegas AM radio station. That's right. They bought time.
KLVA is to radio what Author House is to publishing. If you can't really get a job on a real radio station, you can go to KLVA and buy blocks of time. They give you the studio, provide production assistance, and you're on the air! Instant radio host status. If you'd like to become a talk radio host tomorrow, call your local AM vanity station and offer them some cash. That's all it takes. You can stutter. You can whine. You can say outrageously stupid things. You can be boring. It's on your dime. I could put my four-year-old in front of a mic and have her sing variations on "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" for two hours a day and, voila!, she'd have a claim equivalent to Taylor's as a "radio host".
So, what do you think? Are her claims to being an "author" and "radio host" misleading?
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