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The thin skinned need not apply for this business
There's a post I read yesterday that I'd dearly love to respond to, except it was written by someone who I consider a friend, or at least a friendly acquaintance and my response to it would not be positive at all.
Even I know there's no value in burning a bridge or starting wank over a single blog post like that. I try to save my polite dissent for moments when I feel like it's really necessary to say something. The post in question really made me see red as a writer and someone who would one day like to be published.
Actually, it didn't just make me angry, it made me feel a lot worse about the people I might one day be working with. To tell you the truth, the post made me feel like I wouldn't be "working" with them at all, but fighting them tooth and nail every step of the way.
I see so many posts from all angles telling writers what they're doing wrong, how to do it a better way, all the things about writers that editors and agents are annoyed with. But I never see posts where somebody says to the agents and editors and such, "Hey, this is what you're doing wrong. This is how you're being annoying and not helpful."
Maybe the writers aren't doing it all that wrong, in fact, maybe, as a whole, we're doing it just fucking fine. Okay, sure, some of us send in bad queries or don't follow guidelines. Some of us try way too hard. But every once and a great while I'd like to tell a few of the agents/editors who whine just to get over it. Yes, your job comes with some annoying features. Everyone's job does.
I was an intern in this business, remember. I saw first hand what goes into these things, and you know what? There are worse jobs.
And it's not like the folks on the other side of the line are perfect either, and maybe just once and a while, the UR DOIN IT RONG posts could be aimed at them.
I guess, at the end of the day, I just realize that I had it all wrong. I was naive. I believed that the point of the exercise was to write a book, send it someone who could work with you to shape it into something even better than it was, and have other people help you make that book exciting and enticing to readers, and have someone there with you who could point you through the legalese and direct you to the editor who would most want to work with your book.
I thought the point of the exercise was to come up with the best book possible and then get people to buy it, enjoy it, and come back for more.
Apparently, I was off the mark. Seems like a lot of the things I grew frustrated with at my internship are truer than I wanted to believe. Seems like the attitude of churning things out quick, cheap, and out the door to try to turn whatever buck you can.
I get it. Publishing is a business, books ain't cheap. Money has to be made or we all go home crying. I completely get that. Profits must be made. Part of me questions the business sense in some of these posts, though.
The ones who survive this mess in publishing are going to be those who are willing to take radical action in a different direction and instead of shedding jobs and departments, are going to shed bad policies, bad thinking, bad behaviors. I think that's true of any business in this climate.
Which is another reason that the posts about things writers do wrong and what they should be doing annoy me so much. The writers didn't get the business into this mess. And they won't be the ones to get it out, either. Telling writers what they're doing wrong and not to whine isn't going to save jobs or increase sales.
And I'd like to see some of the industry insiders blogging about that. Blogging about what, exactly, went wrong and what the solutions are going to be.
Does this mean I'm giving a grand flounce and proclaiming that I'm done with trying to get published? Not on your damn life. It does mean that I realize now that I can't just hope other people will do their jobs and be good at them. It means I know now that I have to come out swinging, and swinging hard, if I want to get anything accomplished.
It means that maybe, you can't just be, as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jaylake says, psychotically persistent. It means that you might also need to be persistently psychotic.
Even I know there's no value in burning a bridge or starting wank over a single blog post like that. I try to save my polite dissent for moments when I feel like it's really necessary to say something. The post in question really made me see red as a writer and someone who would one day like to be published.
Actually, it didn't just make me angry, it made me feel a lot worse about the people I might one day be working with. To tell you the truth, the post made me feel like I wouldn't be "working" with them at all, but fighting them tooth and nail every step of the way.
I see so many posts from all angles telling writers what they're doing wrong, how to do it a better way, all the things about writers that editors and agents are annoyed with. But I never see posts where somebody says to the agents and editors and such, "Hey, this is what you're doing wrong. This is how you're being annoying and not helpful."
Maybe the writers aren't doing it all that wrong, in fact, maybe, as a whole, we're doing it just fucking fine. Okay, sure, some of us send in bad queries or don't follow guidelines. Some of us try way too hard. But every once and a great while I'd like to tell a few of the agents/editors who whine just to get over it. Yes, your job comes with some annoying features. Everyone's job does.
I was an intern in this business, remember. I saw first hand what goes into these things, and you know what? There are worse jobs.
And it's not like the folks on the other side of the line are perfect either, and maybe just once and a while, the UR DOIN IT RONG posts could be aimed at them.
I guess, at the end of the day, I just realize that I had it all wrong. I was naive. I believed that the point of the exercise was to write a book, send it someone who could work with you to shape it into something even better than it was, and have other people help you make that book exciting and enticing to readers, and have someone there with you who could point you through the legalese and direct you to the editor who would most want to work with your book.
I thought the point of the exercise was to come up with the best book possible and then get people to buy it, enjoy it, and come back for more.
Apparently, I was off the mark. Seems like a lot of the things I grew frustrated with at my internship are truer than I wanted to believe. Seems like the attitude of churning things out quick, cheap, and out the door to try to turn whatever buck you can.
I get it. Publishing is a business, books ain't cheap. Money has to be made or we all go home crying. I completely get that. Profits must be made. Part of me questions the business sense in some of these posts, though.
The ones who survive this mess in publishing are going to be those who are willing to take radical action in a different direction and instead of shedding jobs and departments, are going to shed bad policies, bad thinking, bad behaviors. I think that's true of any business in this climate.
Which is another reason that the posts about things writers do wrong and what they should be doing annoy me so much. The writers didn't get the business into this mess. And they won't be the ones to get it out, either. Telling writers what they're doing wrong and not to whine isn't going to save jobs or increase sales.
And I'd like to see some of the industry insiders blogging about that. Blogging about what, exactly, went wrong and what the solutions are going to be.
Does this mean I'm giving a grand flounce and proclaiming that I'm done with trying to get published? Not on your damn life. It does mean that I realize now that I can't just hope other people will do their jobs and be good at them. It means I know now that I have to come out swinging, and swinging hard, if I want to get anything accomplished.
It means that maybe, you can't just be, as
jaylake says, psychotically persistent. It means that you might also need to be persistently psychotic.