Dear Author,
Thank you for submitting your work to us. Unfortunately, it doesn't meet our needs at the present time, but we wish you future success.
Sincerely,
The Editor
Well, that's what they write. Any professional in the business will tell you editors, agents, and publishers don't reject writers: They reject pieces of paper with words written on them. However, that's not what writers hear:
Dear Loser,
We considered using your manuscript as a coaster, but it was stinking up the place so much we couldn't even be bothered to steam off the stamps. Hopefully we'll never hear from you again, but wish you success at a more appropriate profession, such as fish cleaner or stall mucker.
Go Away,
The Editors
And that's not fair, because in the publishing industry the gatekeepers are inundated with hundreds of--let's face it, sometimes desperate--writers every day. Sometimes a form rejection letter (more likely e-mail) is all they have time for; sometimes they don't have time even for that. There are lots of things to complain about with the publishing industry, but on an individual basis the people working there are pretty decent.
Still, writers get more rejections than a nerd at a sports bar, and I should know. (Just kidding--I never went to sports bars.) In fact, if you're doing it right you're going to get lots and lots of rejections. But sometimes, especially if you're having a down day overall, your umpteenth rejection will show up and just hit you harder than most. That's what happened to me, anyway.
When I first started out, back in the days of snail mail delivered by the Pony Express, I collected enough form rejection letters to paper my office walls ... which would have looked better than the wallpaper I actually had at the time. Later I'd get the occasional encouraging note at the end of one. Then I'd get brief, but personal, rejections. Then more detailed ones, and then, one day, an acceptance. A few times after that, I received some detailed letters describing why they were rejecting the manuscript, or even asking for some changes and a resubmission. Now it's decades since I started out: I have nine published books, and stories in three anthologies.
And I still get form rejection letters.
So yeah, it gets me down sometimes, especially this time of year when the days are short. But after all this time, I've developed a method of dealing with these bouts of sudden depression: I go to my laptop, open up a word document ...
And start working on another story.
It doesn't get me published ... well, not immediately. But it does remind me of why I'm doing this to begin with.
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Sometimes the writing life just goes to the dogs. |
Comments
Write on brother!
Sorry for that. But you seem not to have the right connections yet, seeing what shit is published and put out daily. We're in the connection age, not the quality age, anyway. I know it....
Thanks for that link. Maybe they accept books in German LOL
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My next novel will be self-published, so the best part will be getting the proof and seeing it in print for the first time. That's great, but I have to admit that the acceptance letter is probably the best moment for almost any beginning writer. And it never gets old!
Self-publishing is the way to go these days.
I encountered a couple Canadian publishers who would publish anything for about $5000. They make the connections to the ebook world and set themselves up for print runs if demand calls for it. $5000 may sound like a lot of money, but it's cheaper than mailing 1000 manuscripts. And your book is out there! And the publisher will do a little marketing for you.
I didn't go this route, but it was nice to know that the gatekeeper of who gets printed or not can be cast aside.
Traditional publishing is like prostitution. It's not the person getting paid who gets to call the shots, within reason.
Not publishing is like ED. It's gotta be hard copy put in the right place to make an impact. Manuscripts left limp in drawers does no good.
Mark, the first thing is you have to get your work out there, no matter how good, bad, or ugly. And everybody knows this so they, anybody who writes anything, are all glutting the market. Yeah, most of these people couldn't write their way out of a paper bag, but there's no one stopping them, and the industry loves this. Everybody's got a story, they say. That's crap. Everybody has experiences. To turn experiences into a story takes real effort. Anybody who says, I just whipped this off on my two-week vacation, probably stole it if it's any good.
The first guy who read my first novel told me I had the talent. Everybody tells me I have the talent. I've been writing since childhood, story telling before that. I have gifts. That first novel got taken, he told me, and laughed because he knew, and then all you have are problems. He did tell me that the publishing game is the dirtiest business in the world, because the pros know nobody can protect their work, no little guy. Disney has made an industry of stealing the work of unknown authors. I heard it from a writing teacher, a well-respected, published author. But it's as known as the indiscretions of Harvey Weinstein were, by people in the business.
Talent has nothing to do with getting published. Getting published has to do with giving the people who will pay you something that they want. And they might not want you because you're already considered a problem, as Jeff Michka keeps pointing out to me.
So here's the thing. If you can make people angry with your work, there's a good chance it's good work, because if it really sucks, nobody reads it. I hate almost all of the dialogue I read in modern fiction. Everybody has to be a smart ass. Remember Harry Potter was rejected by thirty agents and publishers, at least, but I don't think she came up with that idea. I think it was stolen. I'd like to see JK Rowling's work before and after. That's the only way to know if someone steals. Minds don't change how they operate. The playfulness with language is innate.
We are very lucky, us writers with talent, unlike in the past where you could be blackballed and walled off and not break through. We can go on social media and build our own audiences. We can perform our work in videos, and if we're good performers, with good material, the work will find a following. That's the lesson in all of this. The work has to sell itself. Hype only takes something so far. Fire and Fury is a nothing book. It could have been written in a paragraph, but the hype sold it.
In this world, you have to make your own buzz, and if you have had enough conflicts with the industry, those people will want you to buzz off. But if you believe, all you can do is keep writing. And never believe comments. You have no idea what they mean without context.
Without the hype, all you have is talent and hard work, whether you're trying to self or traditional publish. The biggest advantage with the former is that someone else is taking on a lot of the financial risks; the biggest advantage of the latter is that you can get published without fitting in the mold of what someone else wants. Either way, it takes both the talent and the hard work (if you're not a celebrity) to make it in the long run.
Your wife's efforts may seem cheap, but the effort going in a book is quite enormous. Then when the book is in shape to show the world, the effort to market it can also be enormous. Even if I somehow manage to get $100,000 in royalties some day, I doubt I would be making minimal wage for my efforts.
Family and friends have indirectly told me why I am such a fool to have spent so much time on my writing and other inventions. I say to them that I don't spend time in the pub, coffeehouse, golf course, or installing unnecessary parts for my car. My book was my recreation!
But I think the 4th version of "Tiered Democratic Governance" is going to be last creative endeavor. Even despite Mr. Trump, the world is not ready to consider another form of democracy. It is time to focus on retirement and put more effort on getting a few kids through school.
That's what I look at all of my writing as, an attempt to write something meaningful well. What happens with it beyond that is anyone's guess, but in that process of writing and editing we become better people, we can't help it. We become more aware of how we think and how we can hone our thought process, and we become more aware of the attitudes of the people on the other end of our communication. So much of the modern game is about winning. I want my readers to want to win at learning when they get done reading my work. That's all. For myself, I want to earn a living doing what I love, and if it isn't obvious by now, I love to write. That is why I started and why I will continue to do so until the day I die.
Mark you are very lucky to have a partner in your efforts. Cherish is the word I would use to describe. Have rediscovered The Association on You tube. What a bunch of cool nerds. They have a guy playing recorder in the band. They have fun with it all and grow terrible mustaches.
Boy, I haven't heard The Association in awhile ... it was okay to be a music nerd, back then. These days they'd have a publicist changing them around to make them look "cool".