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Over the years I have seen the "Save the Genre" discussion pop up on Shocklines again and again.

It starts with some well meaning fan who posts something about the death of the horror genre -- something you can see in horror fiction and something which is very odd considering the number of horror movies that get made each year. How can a genre that seems to thrive in low-budget to mid-budget films be dying on the vine at the bookstores???

After the initial posts, someone will try to lay blame by pointing out that there is a hardcore group of in-crowd mid-list horror authors who are excluding the real talent out there. Then a few professional authors will show up and tell everyone not to worry that they, the professional author who knows everything, are not excluding anyone and they are not to blame.

This is not true. While they may not be excluding anyone it is true that the 'circle jerk' of in-crowd mid-list authors are without a doubt killing the genre -- one mediocre book at a time.

Why are they killing the genre? They need to put food on the table. And if they can put food on the table cranking out two 'Leisure Press' books a year then more power to them because everyone who wants to be a writer wants to make a living doing it.

They are still to blame -- not because they they are some in-group who fight off newcomers with kitschy Hunter S. Thompson references and bottles of tequila -- but instead because they don't aspire to be something more than mid-list genre authors.

The real talented people out there in the horror genre are plain not putting in the effort. While they are busy putting food on the table, they forgot how to use their talent to craft those mind-blowing horror novels that become instant classics.

The authors who fuel the genre right now are also the authors who are killing it. After picking up one generic 'Leisure' novel after another how many horror fans drift away to other genres or give up totally and start spending time with their iPod or their Playstation?

The genre will not recover until the people with the most talent stop trying to put food on the table and instead go back to trying to scare the excrement out of people.