It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know

[skip.knox]

I am compelled to return to this thread. Take a look at the subject line. The first clause is simply false. It is indeed what you know (in this case, what you write, but that's not as catchy). What you know (write) is absolutely indispensable. So the dichotomy the statement poses--it isn't this but that--is false right out of the gate.

> otherwise Knight's story would have ended up in some slush pile at some magazine, competing against a thousand other stories for attention

This statement contains the implication that Knight's story would not in fact have been published at "some magazine." The evidence to the contrary is that Knight published an enormous number of stories, and went to edit (brilliantly) a great many more.

>I think personal factors account for more sales than publishing professionals are willing to let on
You are welcome to think this. My experience has been that publishing professionals always emphasize that personal factors are important, and they encourage people to attend conventions, etc.

> If you give agents what they like, your chance of being accepted is much higher than if you send a contemporary fantasy agent a spy thriller novel. Personal factors.

Yes, agents have areas of preference. They are quite up front about this. They make quite a point about it on their agent web site. The aspiring author is well advised to take their specialties seriously. This is not some industry secret, it's just plain fact. Not everyone wants to represent everything.

>should that be what I'm doing? [speaking of networking]
Yes. Any chance you get. Making actual connections, speaking honestly. It's not really a game. Agents and editors are folks. They have to wade through mountains of crap in hopes of finding brilliance, or even simple competence. I have taught college history for thirty years, so I know something of the dedication it takes to keep doing this.

It's not a shell game. There's no dark secret behind the curtain. Yes, some people get lucky. Even more people don't get lucky. There's no sure path to success. There is, however, a sure path to failure: decide it's a game, that it's rigged, and there's some dark secret behind the curtain.

It's not who you know. It's not any one thing.

 

[Devor]

That's part of the point I'm trying to make, AnnoyingKid; should that be what I'm doing?

If I can answer that . . . .

No. Don't do that.

Think about some of the people you work with, and that you like, at some of the jobs you've had over your career. What are the qualities that make you want to work with them? I'm betting that doing a crap job isn't one of them.`Now imagine that you're making decisions where big bucks are on the line and you've worked with, or know people who have worked with, some of the best in the field. Now think, what qualities would you respect in your coworkers?

It's true that a lot of books get published which are mediocre. Mediocrity is surprisingly common everywhere you go. Have you seen the recent DC movies? The best talents, hundreds of millions of dollars, and the critical consensus is that they got fairly mediocre results.* It happens everywhere, and there's no stopping it. Do you know how many of William Shakespeare's works are considered lousy? Most of them, as it happens. Mediocrity will be the scourge of us all.

It's also true that a book only needs 20,000 sales to be fairly successful, and that many people are perfectly happy with mediocre material if it strokes the right itch. The job of an editor isn't finding the perfect book, but finding a book that scratches an open itch.

"Mediocrity." Like it's a bad thing. The word means average, so by definition a bit more than half of everything is mediocre or worse. That's just way things are.

 

[Annoyingkid]

That's part of the point I'm trying to make, AnnoyingKid; should that be what I'm doing?

Like you even could.

After all, an insider who advocates for your hypothetically bad manuscript is putting their reputation on the line and has to make a case beyond "this is my buddy".

Yes. Alot of work is mediocre.

But what if that mediocre writer just happens to be dependable, prolific, easygoing and open to changes? That goes a long way to explaining alot of mediocre work. Publishers can't be expected to wait only for the exceptional. They wouldn't make money then. But then the question is, do you have the other qualities to make up for it?

 

[Russ]

People often like to present polarized choices that are not real. Like the discussion about write what you know or what sells. They aren't real choices, they are false dichotomies. That can lead to bad conclusions. The other thing people like to do is talk about, or more accurately speculate about complex systems without reading knowing anything about them. Both of these things seemed to have happened in this thread.

Writing is one thing. The business of writing is another.

What the OP seems to have done is to turn acquiring editors into symbols of evil, and forgotten that they are real people with real aspirations and real responsibilities.

Now you talk about editorial assistants that you say give each manuscript 10 seconds, do you think they don't want to find the next Tolkien? Don't you think that is their dream? What do you think happens in an office when they miss a Rothfuss or a Rowlings or the next big thing?

Editors want to move up. They want to find the best possible material to please their superiors and be successful.

Editors are underpaid. Some of them even have to support their families. They lose their jobs. Some of them lose their jobs because the stuff they bought didn't sell. Some of them lose their jobs because they didn't buy enough works because in that slush pile they couldn't find enough stuff to keep management happy.

Editors go to meetings where they have to champion the works they have bought to committees and sales people. How well do you think it goes when they tell salespeople to tell the distributor this book is worth buying because their uncle Bob wrote it?

There is competition within imprints and houses, and within publishers. Do you think they want to publish mediocre material so they can risk their future and risk their job? Really?

Sure there are a few small presses where some guy has a enough power he can take a flyer on whatever he or she wants. That is because it is their money in the game. I don't even think they do if for that reason. At a half decent sized company that doesn't happen. Even senior editors answer to people and they don't buy books from their debut buds because they don't deal in small advance debut authors.

You are others are happy to say their is a lot of mediocre work published by big publishers. That is just your subjective opinion. In the business of writing success for most houses is measured in sales. If the sales warrant keeping the author on, they will, if they don't they usually won't. Whether you think a work in mediocre or not is irrelevant to that decision.

The fact is that picking big winners is hard. Very hard. Picking stuff that is passable is not so bad. But picking big winners is hard.

If you think that success is based on who you know, not the quality of the writing, perhaps you can tell us who it was that Rothfuss sent his work to that was his inside connection and made him a success? And more importantly why didn't he send it to his contact in the first place rather than be rejected by at least one big five publisher? Or Rowling? Or why did Steve Berry accumulate 85 rejections before his first sale, why didn't her just use his contact and skip those years of rejections?

Now in any business, people skills are valuable. Publishing is (as Lee Child has said) a relationship business, once you are in it.

If your work is in the margins, not clear whether it is going to be sold or not, you want to have everything you can helping you get that sale. If your work is not in those margins it is not going to matter. If your work is not close to purchasable then you can be close to whoever you want a real publisher is not going to buy it. If your work has obvious commercial value than you can get away with a less than loveable personality.

But if you are in the margins than you should try to maximize and utilize your networking skills and get along with people. In traditional publishing I have known some mid list writers who careers were ended because they were hard to work with. However I have never even heard of someone who got published by a traditional publisher because they know someone but could not write well.

So does a good personality help in publishing like just about every other business. Sure. Can it overcome writing that someone, and eventually the public, thinks is worth buying? Nope.

 

[skip.knox]

Piling on here ...

About that word mediocre. Russ rightly points out it means average. Median. Middling. Not awful, not great.

But if you really want to get a measure of mediocrity in writing, you need to include all those submissions in the slush pile as well. What gets published is actually better than average. Just because I think much of it borders on unreadable doesn't mean anything much beyond myself. Much (they do overlook gems) of the stuff agents refuse is downright awful. The reason why they spend so little time on a given manuscript is because it doesn't take long to recognize awful. Or, more accurately, unpublishable.

I have about twenty rejections to my name, all short stories. I can tell you that out of those, four times the editor has replied to me directly with specific information about why they rejected it. These are not people who are playing games. They are professionals doing their job. Of those rejections, two offered to take another look if I wanted to rewrite, and one went on to publish.

I do recommend trying to network, if for no other reason than to get to know these agents and editors, and judge for oneself what sort of folk they are.

 

[oenanthe]

Let me ask you. What personal connection resulted in your book sale? Do you think you sold your book because of who you knew not what you wrote?

I have friends who work in publishing, in various positions and job descriptions. one of those friends asked to read my MS. it wound up catching the attention of one of their friends, who asked to see it. and then the snowball really started rolling.

I think it happened as fast as it did because I had those social connections. without them, I would probably still be waiting to hear back from an agent, or have moved on to another book.

 

[oenanthe]

oh yay I killed the thread

go me

*waves ribbon*

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

I have friends who work in publishing, in various positions and job descriptions. one of those friends asked to read my MS. it wound up catching the attention of one of their friends, who asked to see it. and then the snowball really started rolling.

I think it happened as fast as it did because I had those social connections. without them, I would probably still be waiting to hear back from an agent, or have moved on to another book.

Let's suppose your work was utter crap. Would it have been publisjed?

 

[Demesnedenoir]

It is a form of hubris quite popular with readers and writers to claim some published work is crap. I have no doubt that true crap does get purchased and makes it into print, but for the most part this isn't the case, in particular with first sales for new writers. Even if it sells horribly, someone who had skin in the game thought enough of the book to publish, which means something.

 

[oenanthe]

Let's suppose your work was utter crap. Would it have been publisjed?

well, see, I have all these social connections in publishing, so all signs point to yes. that's the argument, isn't it?

Honestly, I can't evaluate my own work, really. I like it. that's a pretty meaningless thing to say, though.

 

[Russ]

well, see, I have all these social connections in publishing, so all signs point to yes. that's the argument, isn't it?

Honestly, I can't evaluate my own work, really. I like it. that's a pretty meaningless thing to say, though.

Let us know when it hits the market. Then we can chime in

I have a boatload of connections in publishing, and I don't know of any instance were someone published something from a friend or relative that fell well below standard.

I know of lots of instances where books failed or turned out to be below standard, but that had nothing to do with social connections.

 

[Ronald T.]

I have to agree with psychotick.

Luck and knowing an insider can open doors that might remain closed otherwise. But if a writer or an artist has nothing to back up those helpful, but scarce, benefits, they too will be barred from entering those doors.

Luck is the one component we have little control over. But we have full control of the quality of our product. If we can't show that we possess the promise of being a proficient writer, no insider is going to risk their reputation by opening that door for us.

And as Greg said, if you want to test the quality of your writing, there is always e-publishing available. However, that is an unbelievably difficult route to take as well. All the work of effective publicity falls squarely on your shoulders. And the only thing that will make you a success is "Word of Mouth".

That means you must actually know something about good writing and good story-telling, and have the ability to create it. In the world of e-publishing, it's not about "who you know", but "what you know". Word of mouth only works if you can write well and tell a good story. It's all about your skill level as a writer, and then about how good you are at self-promotion.

However, it's a frustratingly slow process no matter how you go about it. We can only hope that Lady Luck takes an unlikely shine to us.

So, all I can say to any writer is...Good Luck, and never give up.

 

[ThinkerX]

For what little it may be worth...

I subscribed to 'Asimov's' and 'Fantasy and Science Fiction,' two of the longest running magazines in the genre a couple years back. I'd hoped to find interesting stories from new authors.

Instead...

1 - Most of the stories were by 'name' authors with multiple novels under their belts; and

2 - in my opinion, a substantial number of those stories simply were not very good. No exaggeration to say that a few of the 'Iron Pen' or 'Top Scribe' tales were better than those - the work of new or novice writers.

I am tempted to conclude that many of those stories were published not because of the stories merits, but because of the authors name.

That said, I have run into a lot of subpar self published online works, usually by newcomers, but sometimes by professionals as well.

 

[Insolent Lad]

I have concluded that one of the best ways to become a famous writer is to become famous for something else first. I have a friend who is a rather well known musician and dabbles at novels on the side. They are good enough books but I doubt they would sell nearly so well without her name recognition. That was her 'foot in the door' and it certainly helped her gain entry to the world of publishing.

 

[skip.knox]

I had a similar experience, ThinkerX, though I came a different conclusion. My big surprise was how many stories were pretty well written, but which ended badly. Over and over I encountered well-written stories that moved along, caught my interested, and then simply stopped. They did not end, they just stopped. No climax, no point, no insight.

My conclusion was that there is a kind of story that current editors like, but which I do not. I saw this in more than one magazine, so more than one editor. Naturally certain authors appear multiple times. This implies no conspiracy of the privileged but merely shows that people tend to stick with what they know and, in the case of magazines, what they know sells. These operations run very close to the bone.

There was a time when, if John Campbell didn't like your work, you were relegated to the pulps. Some authors, like Asimov, were getting published before they were even out of high school. Other authors worked years before they found the editor who would listen.

I don't know how many different ways to say this. It's been said on this thread multiple times. Yes, being connected helps. That's why you network. But no, no, a hundred times no, being connected is not the *only* way to get published. If no one buys my stuff, it's because no one wants it. If they do want it, but don't have room for it, they tell me. If they think it's pretty good but still not quite publishable, they tell me that, too.

Rejection is not a synonym for conspiracy.

 

[Russ]

For what little it may be worth...

I subscribed to 'Asimov's' and 'Fantasy and Science Fiction,' two of the longest running magazines in the genre a couple years back. I'd hoped to find interesting stories from new authors.

Instead...

1 - Most of the stories were by 'name' authors with multiple novels under their belts; and

2 - in my opinion, a substantial number of those stories simply were not very good. No exaggeration to say that a few of the 'Iron Pen' or 'Top Scribe' tales were better than those - the work of new or novice writers.

I am tempted to conclude that many of those stories were published not because of the stories merits, but because of the authors name.

That said, I have run into a lot of subpar self published online works, usually by newcomers, but sometimes by professionals as well.

I can't comment on the quality of the stories but you are dead right that it is harder than ever for new authors to break into those mags because they believe that name authors sell more copies from them. When they are serializing someone's freaking novel it eats up a lot of space!

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Exactly, I doubt the margin on short story magazines is high profit, they need to sell as many copies as they can, and names will help.

I can't comment on the quality of the stories but you are dead right that it is harder than ever for new authors to break into those mags because they believe that name authors sell more copies from them. When they are serializing someone's freaking novel it eats up a lot of space!

 

[bestellen]

After all, an insider who advocates for your hypothetically bad manuscript is putting their reputation on the line and has to make a case beyond "this is my buddy".