From Salon, circa 2004, the "adventures" of a semi-successful mid-list author dealing with the NYC publishing establishment in the pre-ebook era.
http://www.salon.com/2004/03/22/midlist/
By all indications, she seems to have had a better-than-average experience: good editors, decent advances, great reviews.
Quote:
“A midlist author is one whose books are well received but have failed to make a commercial breakthrough; whose work sells solidly but unspectacularly, who’s well known within the writing community but the majority of book buyers have never heard his name.”
– David Armstrong, “How Not to Write a Novel: Confessions of a Midlist Author,” 2003
Reader Advisory: By the end of this story I will have broken the most sacred rules of modern authordom. I’ll tell you how much my publishers have paid me for the books I’ve written. I’ll tell you how many copies each of those books has sold. I’ll share with you some of the secrets, lies and euphemisms told to me by my publishers, editors, publicists and agents in their efforts to comfort, pacify and motivate me, and I’ll share some of the salient facts that make those secrets, lies and euphemisms such common industry currency.
If you don’t want to hear about the noir underside of publishing — if you’re a writer longing for a literary career, or a reader who’s happier not knowing that producing and marketing a book these days involves about as much moral purity as producing and marketing a pair of Nikes — I suggest you stop reading now.
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Worse experiences are common, especially today, but even now, few dare challenge the Manhattan mafia openly for fear of blacklisting. But times are changing and authors now have alternatives...