Criticizing the Published

[Russ]

Yikes, Russ, you were only missing an 'Ooh-rah' in that long, poisonous and ultimately belittling rant there.

Go exceptionalism!

No, seriously, if you write 'for the the big bucks' (ergh) and you play by the rules you have made obvious (can't effect the market, but show me a good enough yarn I can sell the suits and whooo-hooh money in the bank- major paraphrasing on my part, but that is what I took from your piece)...I just can't...

By God, if you only write to see the rain of gold piling up in your coffers, if that is your only motivation in this world, then I pity you greatly.

Being compared to a marine is a compliment for me.

I, personally, write because I want to. My bills are paid, and my coffers filled by my day job.

By the by, the antidote to my "poison" is hard work and common sense. A large dose of each solves most ills.

 

[Russ]

Hi Russ,

I don't think we're ever going to agree on how much of a role luck plays in having a successful writing career. And you're right, luck favours those prepare for it. Plus I am not and would never belittle those who succeed by calling their success purely a matter of luck.

But reread your own post, and consider your astronaut example. Then ask yourself, yes it is really, really hard to become an astronaut, but is that enough to explain why certain people make it and others don't? I mean yes it's really really hard, but presumably those who try for the program already know that and are motivated. They work really really hard - those who succeed and those who don't both. Is it fair to assume that those who succeeded were those who worked just that little bit harder or had just that little bit greater natural skill?

You're busy admonishing us not to belittle those who succeed by attributing their success to luck. But aren't you then doing exactly the same belittling to all those who don't succeed by attributing their lack of success to a lack of hard work and talent?

There is this paradigm in psychology called the just world hypothesis, which in essence is an idea of a world view that we all share to some extent. We all want to believe that we live in a just world. That if we do things right things will go well. If we work hard we will succeed. That the control of our destiny is essentially in our own hands. The reality is that it's only partly in our hands. Ask any actress who's spent years honing her craft only to be turned over for her dream role for a younger, prettier actress who hasn't worked half as hard and doesn't have her skill. Or the darker skinned people who end up doing time in prison for crimes that other lighter skinned people would simply get a fine for.

The reality is that the world is not fair and it's not pretty, and all the hard work and talent in the world will not guarantee or even come close to guaranteeing success. You can only maximise your chances.

And as for luck, I think your definition is different to mine here. Luck for a writer is about the sum total of all those factors that are outside of the writer's control and how they come together. They would be talent or hard work if he could control them. If he can't then it's all down to luck.

Cheers, Greg.

I always enjoy your thoughtful posts Greg. I think if you drill down we are closer in our opinion of this than it might appear on the surface.

I think I define "luck" differently than you do. to me "luck" is chance (for good or ill) not all things that are beyond the author's control. To me to call all things beyond one's control "luck" is too large a definition. That is basically your entire environment from the accident of your birth, to the public taste. To use the NHL example, it is not "luck" if you don't make a team because everyone else is faster than you on the ice, which could well be beyond your control. That just means the environment was too tough for that person to succeed. It is luck if you trip and tear up your knee while walking down the sidewalk because you were distracted by a rare car driving by.

The question of success is an interesting one. The only people I think that have not succeeded are those who have given up. To me, people who are still trying to become published or succeed in the field still have a chance of success. It is a tough field, and not everybody will reach their goals. Some people don't have the capacity to succeed at their goals, and I think it is an assuaging balm to tell them that they system is deeply flawed, and that it is luck that has stopped them. To understand why people don't succeed would take a case by case analysis, but of the potential writers I know who have not yet reached their goals I can't think of any who have failed due to luck or chance. Blaming a lack of success on luck, or lack of it, makes a good cushion for the person who has given up (and they have every right to be as comfortable as they chose) but for the people who are still trying, it offers nothing.

Is that a harsh worldview? Perhaps, but it is a hard industry and I don't think I would be doing anyone any good just saying "you are unlucky" or "you might get lucky" instead of explaining what I know about how the industry works, and how people have succeeded in it.

Your suggestion that the best book ever might not get published is particularly off the mark. If luck does play a role, logic tells us that it most likely plays a role on whether "marginal" books get published or not. Great books are highly likely to get bought if their author sends them out, and obviously poor books are equally likely to get rejected if sent out. Luck is only really likely to be a significant factor for works in the range of the quality curve where things could go either way, and that little nudge can make all the difference. So the author's goal should be to work his ass off to get out of that range to eliminate luck playing a role.

I fully agree that the world is not a perfectly just place. But I suggest that luck plays no larger a role in getting published than any other very hard to achieve goal, and perhaps more importantly from a functional perspective, it serves no purpose (beyond the philosophical) to spend time and energy pondering the role of luck in publishing success.

Best

Russ

 

[Feo Takahari]

Is it relevant to discuss published versus "published"? I mean, I don't think my publication with Alban Lake is comparable to publishing with Tor.

(Then again, if I wanted mass appeal, a lot more of my characters would be white.)

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

I'm fine with it. I enjoy organic discussion so wherever this goes I'm all for it.

 

[Caged Maiden]

So, just to clarify for people like me...I've written the best book I can. I've spent a year doing nothing but editing it, strengthening the stuff I can, and I'm not a really green writer, but I'm not published. So...back to my question, because I must consider myself in that "marginal" category in the grand scheme of things...how can I maximize my odds if I'm trying to get a debut novel picked up? How does one (who has spent a lot of time honing their craft and finally confident in their work) become anything other than marginal? I'd like to be good, but I feel mostly like the thing standing in my way is the validation that comes from someone simply saying, "yep, this is good, I want to represent it."

I can write. I mean, I can do whatever it takes to change a story. You want more emotion? I can do that. You want to see this romance really burn? I can do that, too. I can make a deep world with elves that shoot lasers from their eyes or squid-people who have a complex social hierarchy. I COULD do all that and make it into a good story, but then is it my lacking talent that is hurting my odds right now, or is it simply that this particular story I'm querying isn't in fashion? I mean, I'm happy to ditch this book and save it or self-publish it, but I'm just not clear why I'm not succeeding. Am I too "new" and no one wants to take a chance? Is my story too weak? We've already discussed in this thread how widely successful books aren't necessarily the most skillfully written, so what's stopping me from breaking through the gatekeepers with my marginally good book? I'm really serious about trying to understand how to make the most of my time, and I appreciate you folks who have more experience with the market and trends. Basically, I had a romance writer (after I told her about my zombie book) ask whether it was a romance. After I sort of swallowed down the vomit that wanted to creep up (thinking about a zombie romance story), I said no, it was a sort of thriller, using science to justify the experiments that turn men into something like a zombie (for military application). She wasn't really excited about it then. BUT to me...if I had a choice between reading a book about a lab that uses diseases to affect humans, in the hopes of creating soldiers who become sort of zombies...and a zombie romance, I'd pick the former. Hands down. Every damn time.

But she said her friend just sold a zombie romance and the publisher is hungry for more like it. I mean... I don't even know if I'd want to write that book even if someone promised me they'd pick it up. I don't want to be critical of other people's work, but if someone told me they were writing a zombie romance, I'd (in my head) think it was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard of. But there's at least one publisher out there who is searching for it. I just ask myself, why can't I find someone who's searching for a cross between Dangerous Beauty and Assassin's Creed II? It's like Borgias, but in a fake world. Why doesn't that category (whatever it is) appeal? To me, it's everything I want to read, but evidently, I'm in the minority (and perhaps I should switch to weird romances).

 

[Caged Maiden]

I'm sorry if that last post was confusing... I was asking you guys (Greg and Russ and others talking about the luck vs. skill thing) to clarify...for people like me who feel they've done their best, but can't catch a break. I don't believe I'm unlucky...I'm pretty sure I just haven't worked hard enough. But as rejections pile up, I'm just not sure which direction to go.

 

[ThinkerX]

Caged...

Donaldson - author of the Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever series, seen as a classic, had the manuscript for that work rejected by dang near every publisher on the planet before one finally said 'yes.' That series is considered a cult classic. Years later, he wrote a SF series which got printed because of his name and flopped pretty badly on the market.

Likewise, GRRM wrote a pile of novels and shorter tales prior to Game of Thrones. Again, some got published because of his name but flopped pretty badly in sales - the one he mentions the most is 'Armageddon Rag.'

Reading through the reviews and editorials in the likes of Asimov's and F&SF, I think I'm seeing some sort of shift or concern reaching deep into the rooms where 'who to publish' decisions are made. Comments expressing not indifference, but bafflement at the self pub books...and to an extent small press publications. And again, I have seen (and written) stories for Showcase and Challenges that are better than some of the stories appearing in those professional publications.

Not long ago, I convinced a guy on my route to take a look at Wattpad - he's a hobby writer, not really looking to be published. He did so, and was baffled by how some of the stories could have so many 'reads' (100,000+) and NOT be snapped up by a traditional publisher.

I'm saying there is a huge amount of bias.

 

[Caged Maiden]

hmm...I appreciate that, ThinkerX. I guess I just don't understand how someone with drive and maybe not natural talent but certainly a satisfactory level of learned talent can succeed at all. I know a few really talented writers on this site and elsewhere, and we're good enough. I mean, we perform better than the things above you mentioned, and I just can't for the life of me understand how it is that we're all in the same soggy boat and not one of us has been thrown a life preserver by the cruise boat sailing by. Is on one concerned that we may drown? If i had a connection, I'd share it with my friends who I admire. (that ins't a plea to any person here, just a generalization aimed at agents) Can we do anything to be noticed? What's the point of my facebook author page and responding to author blogs if everyone I meet is just another starving artist? Too many of them are too good to be in this boat after their hard-spent years. There has to be some way to catch a break.

Maybe self-publishing is the break. Agents certainly are rumored to respond differently to a writer who has a following and fans who will buy the newly-published book after reading self-published works. Is that the door through which we should all start aiming to enter? I'm just so confused. What is an agent looking for, if not my careful consideration of my work? Is it a concept I'm just not writing? Is it my work being too shabby? I just can't tell and I know I've heard the same mystified voices ask this question here more than a few times. That's it, scribes! We need our own publishing company! Shit, we sort of are, already. We help promote each other's blogs and self-published as well as traditional work. We exchange crits and reviews. Maybe that's the real deal in today's clime and I'm just watching for a big break that doesn't exist (by big break, I merely mean an opportunity, not a best-seller list or a monetary gain...just a chance to show my work to an agent who cares to represent it).

 

[MineOwnKing]

Agents have to commit to selling a manuscript to a publishing house. Publishing houses have to answer to stock holders.

Amazon controls the market, Amazon is flooded with self-published novels.

Write a mainstream novel about a woman living in a cave with a bearman, a wolfman and a vampire. Sell a million copies and then write the books you really want to write.

 

[Steerpike]

Amazon has something like 41% of the total new book sales. That's a lot for one entity.

 

[cupiscent]

Chiming in as someone who's in roughly the same position as Caged - I wrote a book, I polished it, I repolished it, I got interest from agents but no representation for a variety of reasons, and now I'm polishing what I hope is a better and more marketable book.

I think it's partly about having the write novel in the write place with the right person at the right time. Agents are looking for authors they believe in and books they can sell right now. Which might mean what's hot right now on the shelves is dead in purchasing. (Remember what's hitting shelves right now was bought eighteen months ago or more.) Everyone's looking for the next thing, but publishing is also very conservative because of the diminishing returns. So they want new, but perhaps not that new? Still, it's about people - the people at publishing houses, the agents who know them and what they're looking for, and the authors whose queries need to sell the book hard and make a connection with those agents.

A big element is also that what makes a good novel for an established author might not be a good "breakout" novel. As a debut author, our novels need to punch hard and generate excitement. They need to do more, do it harder, pull no punches. (This was a big problem for my first novel: it's a quieter, more intricate and emotional novel. But no worries, I can stick it in the drawer and try it again once I'm established!)

Most agents get dozens if not hundreds of queries a week. Most publishing houses might pick up, what, ten debuts a year? We have to stand out: in the quality of our queries and writing, in our professionalism in picking up and carrying on, and in the quality of the ideas we're turning out. I believe, with persistence and quality, that right-place, right-time, right-person connection will happen sooner or later.

 

[MineOwnKing]

I check the best sellers list for fantasy quite often.

Right now it’s:

A Shade of Vampire,( a super cut, shirtless man on the cover)
When an Alpha Purrs, (a super cut, shirtless man on the cover)
Pursuing the Panther, (a super cut, shirtless man on the cover)
First Bite, ( a super cut, shirtless man on the cover)
Doctor Bear, ( a super cut, shirtless man on the cover)

I used to believe that real quality work and extraordinary talent were enough to get an agents attention, but the proof of the pudding, is in the eating.

If you're not writing this kind of fantasy, then it all comes down to who you know, or who you blow.

 

[X Equestris]

I check the best sellers list for fantasy quite often.

Right now it’s:

A Shade of Vampire,( a super cut, shirtless man on the cover)
When an Alpha Purrs, (a super cut, shirtless man on the cover)
Pursuing the Panther, (a super cut, shirtless man on the cover)
First Bite, ( a super cut, shirtless man on the cover)
Doctor Bear, ( a super cut, shirtless man on the cover)

I used to believe that real quality work and extraordinary talent were enough to get an agents attention, but the proof of the pudding, is in the eating.

If you're not writing this kind of fantasy, then it all comes down to who you know, or who you blow.

Why am I not surprised with those results?

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

I am with Russ on this one. You have to create your own luck. Sure there are some authors that can pull a J.K Rowling or Meyer, but not many. Martin has been writing stuff for years before he got his Song of Ice and Fire published. Another, I think even more extreme example, is Brandon Sanderson.

Before Sanderson was published he wrote twelve novels. (EUOLogy: My History as a Writer) That is a fairly ridiculous number. I know from Writing Excuses he attended several conferences and workshops. He honed his craft and had a backlog of books that he could also sell. The first book he sold was Elantris. That is not what he is known for. Instead, he's known for The Mistborn Trilogy and The Way of Kings. He admits that he could never have sold The Way of Kings. He says because it is just too dang weird, from a publishing standpoint. But, because of his early works, he got "lucky" when he was picked by Harriet to finish the Wheel of Time series. Now, he is a well respected and well paid author (he and his family live off his income). That is a lot of luck. But, he put as much as he could in his court. He made the right choices and worked harder than many to get where he is today. So, yes, he got lucky. But he made sure the odds were in his favor.

 

[Guy]

Dear gods, it looks like fantasy is being infected by romance and erotica to produce a whole new unholy spawn. And just when I was breathing a sigh of relief that the vampire fad seemed to be waning, too...

 

[ThinkerX]

Dear gods, it looks like fantasy is being infected by romance and erotica to produce a whole new unholy spawn. And just when I was breathing a sigh of relief that the vampire fad seemed to be waning, too...

Said spawn has been around for a while. Take a gander at some of the magazine (and book) covers from the 60's and 70's - and more than a few of the sword and sorcery tales revolved around busty beauties alternately stalking and being stalked by hunky guys - Kirks 'Raven' (actually two authors sharing a penname) series and Rivkin's 'Silver Glass' series leap to mind, though there are many more. Others, like Logston's 'Shadow' series are essentially romances with strong fantasy elements.

I've known a number of used bookstore owners down through the decades, and they are in uniform agreement: fantasy /SF moves pretty good, but romances - especially the 'trashy' ones - outsell everything else. In that context, its no great surprise romance authors wouldn't look to add fantasy / SF elements to some of their books.

(I stole the map concept for my main world from Kirk's series)

 

[MineOwnKing]

Dear gods, it looks like fantasy is being infected by romance and erotica to produce a whole new unholy spawn. And just when I was breathing a sigh of relief that the vampire fad seemed to be waning, too...

Yeah,

Don't shoot the messenger or anything; but if you're writing the next Moby Dick, that white whale better turn into a hot dude at some point in the tale.

I'm totally fine with it. Whatever makes momma happy, makes daddy proud.


Nobody can tell you where your place is. Where is my place? Where is anybody’s place? I’ll tell you where it is. Wherever you’re happy, that’s your place. And happiness is a matter of purely personal adjustment to your environment. You’re the sole judge. In Hyde Park, for instance. Some people like to feed nuts to the squirrels. But if it makes you happy to feed squirrels to the nuts, who am I to say nuts to the squirrels?

 

[Penpilot]

Before Sanderson was published he wrote twelve novels. (EUOLogy: My History as a Writer) That is a fairly ridiculous number..

If you want to make that number even more ridiculous, he wrote those twelve novels in one year, because he worked as a night manager at a hotel, and wrote at work. He also did what everyone says not to do. He quite his job after he sold Elantras, and was able to live off his advance because he lived in Dan Well's basement, and the only thing he did all day was write.

He also landed the Wheel of Time gig because he wowed Harriet by showing her how he was an uber fan of the series through his knowledge of it.

You can call Sanderson many things, but lazy is not one of them.

 

[Caged Maiden]

You know what's ridiculous? I have written 13 novels and have about 100 short stories. Admittedly, most of it is shit (either weak concept or first draft), but my word count has to be up there with published writers. I just wish some of it counted for something, you know? What have I got to show for all those words? Nothing.

 

[Penpilot]

You know what's ridiculous? I have written 13 novels and have about 100 short stories. Admittedly, most of it is shit (either weak concept or first draft), but my word count has to be up there with published writers. I just wish some of it counted for something, you know? What have I got to show for all those words? Nothing.

I wouldn't call all those stories nothing. Thirteen novels is nothing to sneeze at. It's thirteen more than many writers have. And it's thirteen ideas that have been explored in which you can go back to if 14 or 15 gets picked up. Not to mention you've gained many thing just from the experience of writing those novels.

I mean, if you don't value what you've written, how do you expect someone else to value it enough to pay you for it?