Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lake
So in short, unless you're already published (be it self, POD, or PTP) and well known, plus successful, your chances of getting picked up are nearly zero.
|
But hasn't it always been this way? I just read some Stephen King short story collections, and he talks in the intros about spending years working as an English teacher while publishing short stories in lad magazines. He had several years of cred as a story writer who had been paid to publish, before he even attempted a novel. And Grisham's big gimmick was that he really was a lawyer, and Robin Cook was really a doctor...none of these were overnight successes. Margaret Atwood, who is better known for her novels now, got her first break by publishing a poetry collection. At the time, practically nobody in Canada was publishing major poetry at all, so she was pretty much the only game in town come award season, and immediately won a Governor General's Award. Then she had cred for other things.
I wonder if some people just have too much of an instant gratification mindset where they write what they think is a great novel and expect just to publish it, be discovered and have Harry Potter-ish levels of success. They don't do their research, they don't pay their dues. You would be amazed at how many people I went to journalism school with who thought they would literally graduate and be an anchor on CNN. It doesn't work that way. Or the people I used to meet at fitness conferences who were going to make it big starring in an exercise video, and my first question would be 'have you been to videofitness.com' (like Mobile Read, but for exercise video fans) and they would say no, or 'have you read the blog of So and So' (huge star in exercise video world) and they would say no. They had not even done the most minimum of research to know the market a little and they were surprised they hadn't made it big yet!
If this is a hobby, then fine, write the novel for your own satisfaction and make it big or not. But if this is a *job* then it has to be treated that way imho, and that means knowing the market, writing to it and knowing who the players are and how to attract their attention. That might involve going through an agent. It might involve getting street cred via a blog (I have seen tons of books which began this way) or via publication in some other venue. There *are* ways in. There always have been. But I do think it is a bit naive (and always has been) to just expect that your work is good and will be discovered somehow and fame/fortune will ensue.