Tag-Archive for » publishing «
Hey you. Yeah, you there, you crazy ass writer. Let’s get one thing straight, okay? The world is not out to get you. There isn’t some huge conspiracy going on in the publishing world to prevent you from getting published. Really, they have better things to do with their time. So every time you go out and blame the agents for getting in your way on your road to publication, I want to hand you a tinfoil hat.
98% of the authors on the shelves now got there via the slush pile. They didn’t magically appear there. They didn’t have the help of a fairy godmother. They worked their asses off to be able to write worth a damn and queried like every other schlub out there. So take the blinders off, will you?
When I see a writer talking about getting over 100 form rejections from agents and then they proceed to blame those agents for not giving these writers the time of day, I want to start throttling something. Of course 100+ form rejections should say something but it’s not, “stop taking those anti-psychotics.” Darling, you really need to stop projecting and start looking at what’s in front of your face in the form of a big steaming pile of shit.
Any GOOD writer would see that it’s them, their writing, that’s the problem. Not those horrible meanie agents that are keeping them from their dreams. I think Freud would call that delusional. I just don’t understand the mentality of some people. And the thing is, once that kind of writer receives those eleventy billion form rejections and piss and moan about how those agents can’t see their genius, they seek other means of publication. They either self-publish or set the bar a hell of a lot lower, like PublishAmerica or some no-name publisher that’ll publish pretty much anything.
“You’re jealous!” they might scream at me. “My name’s in print and yours isn’t! You’re obviously not good enough!” Aside from the fact that the “you’re jealous” (usually used with the wrong form of you are) defense is used by the unintelligent, they fail to realize that I actually do have standards of publication. Yes, I want my name in print. Bad. But I’m not desperate. I’m not willing to settle for any kind of print. I want the good print. The kind that will get me into Barnes and Noble across the country. The kind where publicists will want to promote my book. Where I’ll have signing tours. You know, where people will actually read it. I’m not willing to drop to the level of pond scum that some of these crazy ass writers are dropping to in order to get published. For me it’s either do it right or not at all.
So can we cut the shit please? Aside from the fact that you make the rest of us hard-working normal writers look bad, you’re going to end up in places like SlushPile Hell where you’ll end up in the stocks by the very people you’re querying and mocked by the rest of us. You might think they’re mean but we think you’re a fucking moron. So get your head out of your ass and do it right. Stop feeding the likes of PublishAmerica with your dimwitted naivety.
Remember, just because you write a book doesn’t mean you DESERVE to be published. Like wearing spandex, getting published it a privilege, not a right. It is not owed to you. You deserve nothing. Just write the best damn book you can and maybe it’ll get you somewhere. But for the love of god stop being an asshat about it.
I’m a little perplexed by the overall tone of this article from The Guardian. By the end, I can’t help but feel patronized to on behalf of all those teen authors out there.
Do I think they all deserve to get published? No. I do think that writing, 99% of the time, improves with age because you gain perspective and experience, something most teens just don’t have. And those aren’t skills you can learn through classes or online. You have to actually live to get them and in order to live, you have to continually wake up alive for more than 18 years in a row.
Of course teens go through drama and hardships. They all do. But high school life is nothing compared to the real world and the heaping pile of feces you learn there. But even in the middle of all of that, there are a few teens that can write with just as much panache as any adult writer and can, in my opinion, put them to shame. You know, people say who better to write for teens than teens themselves? I agree, to an extent. While teens can get the voice and drama down pat, most just don’t have the skills to put it all to publishing standard words, not to mention the age to distance themselves from their own work. Because the work is so derivative, how can you separate yourself from it to give it the editing eye is so sorely needs?
But my issue with this article is that it kind of patronizes young writers. As anyone that’s been around kids and teens know, they want to be taken seriously. There’s nothing worse than an adult pandering to them. And that’s what the author of this article was doing. He was talking about just how funny and “snort-worthy” a book by a nine-year-old was. You know, I’m sure we’d all find a humor in it that the younger generations may not but I can almost guarantee that when that girl was writing it, she wasn’t writing a comedy. It’s someone laughing at your work when it’s not funny and then patting you on the head and saying, “Good try, darling. Very cute.” No one likes to be patronized to and kids aren’t stupid.
I do think that reading something from a kid as young as 9 can have it’s charm and offer a voice and a sight into something that most adults couldn’t write. But if we’re only publishing it because “it’s so cute to read,” wouldn’t it just fare better on a blog post or something? I think giving the kid the god-honest truth before it reaches print is much better than being patronized to when it’s published. The latter is far more detrimental to maintaining a love of reading and writing in a child than telling them what they need to hear.
If all you’re doing it humoring them, then don’t publish them. Please. But if they have something to offer the publishing world and write just as good as all those adults twice their age, why deny them that opportunity because of their age? I mean, the publishing world unleased Stephenie Meyer on us (thanks, by the way O_o) and she’s a mother of three. So let’s not pinpoint quality on age alone, ok? I know 6 year olds that have better quality than her.
If you haven’t already stopped by The Bookshelf Muse yet (and I’ve mentioned them I don’t know how many times), then you might want to do it now. Why? Well, aside from the awesome writing tips and tools they provide, they need your help.
As you all (or maybe not) know, The Bookshelf Muse has a bunch of thesauruses (thesauri?) for things like emotions, settings and most recently colors, textures and shapes to help broaden writerly horizons. They do this in order to provide a resource for writers to use in order to better their writing and not use eye rolling and shoulder shrugging all the time. What they do and the effort they put into their posts is absolutely amazing.
But they need your help because they’re considering putting their efforts into book form. And not just the self-published kind. They want to head on over to the big wigs and option their ideas. How can you help them do this? Easy. Support them. Follow their blog either by the follow option, the feed reader, or both. Comment like crazy, tell other people about everything they’re doing for writers. The more support TBM can show these publishers, the better chance they’ll have at getting their book out there and on the shelves for so many more people to see.
So if you like what TBM has to offer and think they’re providing a valuable service, then scream your support from the rooftops. They deserve it, and so does every writer out there.
If you haven’t heard that the publishing world is imploding with the rest of the economy, then I think you’ve been living under a rock. Or just not into publishing, one or the other. It’s not as news-making as the Big Three wanting a bailout in order to escape insolvency but if you’re a writer, it’s certainly big enough.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt halted adult novel acquisitions last month, or so it was grossly rumored (per the HMH spokesperson) as I read on Agent Kristin’s blog. She’s been reporting on this stuff for the past month or so. If you don’t know what that means, it’s really quite simple. No touchy. HMH will no touchy your work. They ain’t buying nothing. Apparently the children’s department is still acquiring and the spokesman did say the news was taken too far, that they were still acquiring but under a tighter pen, but it’s still daunting news.
Well, Publisher’s Weekly has more news out that people in the publishing biz are dropping like flies, all at HMH and their divisions. They’re consolidating their departments in order to save money. Good for them, bad for the rest of us. For writers it means getting an even smaller chance to get published with an HMH imprint and for readers, it means, in a year or so, less by the way of HMH publications to read. The catalogue is shrinking.
We are in dire straits and no one is being left untouched (unless you’re one of the Big Three and get to fly around in your Lear Jets asking for billions in taxpayer money bailout). Our chances of publication have just slimmed that much more. A random blog I read (hell if I could remember which one now, blasted sieve of a memory) had a post that highlighted reasons it’s great to be a writer in a recession (mainly very little monetary output and maximum creative input) and that’s not to be taken lightly. There’s never a bad time to be a writer (in theory) but when the pickers get picky, you just have to up your game.
Not that you were slacking off before and not that this is an excuse or anything because you’ve always done this, but now is the time to strive to write even better than you did before. The competition’s huge and there are fewer medals to win. You have to be better in order to get that coveted spot. You might have thought you were good before. Now it’s time to supercede that. You don’t have a choice.
These are not good signs but we don’t have any choice but to work with them.
Over at The Bookshelf Muse, they have a guest blogger every once in a while called Grammbo, who just so happens to be a fiction editor. This time around she posted points on specific . . . “styles” (for a lack of a better word) that’ll pretty much guarantee an editor won’t take it (note the “pretty much” part). These points, I think, are pretty objective considering, from reading experience, none of them are going to be something an editor (or an agent for that initial step) are going to want to take on (usually, I need to cover myself there, nothing’s 100%). I think Grammbo hit it on the head with this one and let the other nitpicks, the much more subjective ones, fall by the wayside. Really, there’s no way to round up everything that every editor won’t take because none of them adhere to any strict rules of acquiring. They might not even adhere to these guidelines but I think it’s safe to say they will.
Make sure your manuscript is edited to perfection. Or, at least, your perfection. Don’t send out a first draft. That’s never a good thing. I know there are people that edit along the way as they write but even as you finish writing that first draft, I can almost guarantee it’s not submission-ready (not even for *coughannricecough*). You write your book. Edit it to the very point that you think you can’t edit it anymore. Then have someone else look at it. At least one other person.
A second set of fresh eyes distanced from your work is probably the best thing that can be done for it (just make sure it’s the right set of eyes, someone whom you trust and you know will provide valuable feedback on your work). You, as the writer, are too close to your own work to just edit it yourself. There are things in there you’ve missed even though you may think you got everything. Double up. Trade an edit for an edit with someone else. You’ll thank yourself later.
Make sure your manuscript isn’t sterilized, meaning that it doesn’t follow every single piece of “valid” writing advice to the T. Yes, the advice is valid but it must be taken in accordance with how your manuscript dictates it be written. If you follow every “rule” out there, you’ll end up stripping away the voice that makes your work yours and end up with a story that could have been written by anyone for how unaffiliated it reads.
Take all advice, even the good stuff, with a grain of salt. If you truly believe that a certain piece of advice doesn’t work with your writing, and others support that notion, then don’t tailor your writing just to appease some nagging inner or external editor that’s demanding this be done because it’s a “rule.” Rules are broken all the time in writing. Some frustratingly so. Go out and read more and you’ll see. Once you get comfortable with the notion that it’s ok to be imperfect in your style, you’ll be more comfortable and confident with your writing and less paranoid with the technicalities.
