Yesterday, an otherwise very good panelist said:
Publishers are only interested in you as an author if you're famous or infamous. Publishers are gamblers. If you were to go to the horse racing track, would you gamble on a horse that's had a good track record, or one who's never raced before?
[At this point a woman in the audience stood up and cried out, "That's not true!" Another said, "Hey, what about debut novelists?" He continued:]
You hear about these things--they're newsworthy--because they're VERY rare. Fiction is all about selling a name. Unless you're a Picasso or a Renoir [not sure how we got to talking about art], they aren't interested.
Mmm...kay. This logic presupposes two things:
- All current fiction writers entered the market as debut novelists WITH bestselling books somehow already under their proverbial belts, and
- All fiction writers are immortal and will keep writing forever. Otherwise, by this logic, at some point, all existing Picassos and Renoirs would, eventually, die out, and we'd be bookless.
Don't bother with traditional publishing. Take it from me: They are not interested in your work.She said this without knowing anything about our work. Had we professed to being proud writers of alien abduction memoirs and "I love my cat" books? No.
I hope someone in that room sold a book to a major publisher just to spite her. And then spent some of the advance on a fancy website that says how much s/he loves the publisher.
So, yes. I highly recommend these conferences. But know that some of the people there may be in self publishing because they're angry at traditional presses. Keep your critical thinking cap on at all times.
3 comments:
Enough said. I myself, think that there is so much emotion dwelling in the mind of an author at the moment of wanting his or her work read,that it makes it all the more harder to be optimistic about anything else. Me, myself have had a long, very comfortable, and kind conversation with one of Author House's agents, and he helped me a great deal. Even offered information, he didn't have to, after I told him, I wasn't planning on self publishing; but the comfortablity was off the wall, I assume for both of us, that he exstended the invite to a call, anytime, if I had questions. Don't get me wrong, I've had more bad experiences than I'd care to admit. But I can't give up.
I guess in the end, we just have to believe in our writing,be honest with ourselves about being an author, after that, the story screaming to get out of us,will find that paper, become a book, and if we were truly honest with ourselves,as a writer, who knows, maybe even make it to the big screan. God will lead us to the agent/ publishing house etc...
Why thank you, T-Ray! And you're proving a very important point: if you're likable in person (many authors allow their anxiety to make them into less appealing versions of themselves--it's hard to respond well to, "Do you like my book? Will you take it on? Huh huh huh? Will ya?"), most of the time, we're very happy to help.
And I completely agree to you. This is not an entirely logical, rational process. I've seen so much coincidence, serendipity, luck meeting hard work, right-place-right-time, and just plain faith paying off in this business. Have I been on the side that gets to say Yes and, therefore, seen a lot of success? Of course I have. Not everyone gets to see that side of it. But seeing that so often, I can tell you for certain that, yes, it does happen. We need books to make our living. We have to say yes to keep Publishing moving--or there'd be nothing new to sell. The bestselling authors can only crank out so many books per year, and living in a world where there are *only* the big thirty or so authors selling anything--well, it'd be like living without Mom & Pop stores--anywhere in the entire world. Niches would die out. People seeking those niches would find themselves floundering.
As I said to an author yesterday, it's so important--especially for young readers--to be able to find a book that speaks to them. As soon as you find that, you feel so much less alone in the world, and it emboldens you to continue branching out in your thoughts and actions, to become a more nuanced human being.
There are a lot of naysayers--and I understand, of course, wanting to say mean things about an industry that has slighted you. But that doesn't make it all right to discourage those who may--for whatever reason, be it luck, talent, hard work or divine intervention--have every reason in the world to feel hopeful.
Sigh. Just thinking about a world with no mom and pop stores made me depressed.
Then I read, "it's so important--especially for young readers--to be able to find a book that speaks to them. As soon as you find that, you feel so much less alone in the world..."
And now I'm inspired and off to work on my WIP! Hopefully, some day my one of my books--published traditionally--will speak to young readers.
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