[DrZoidberg]

My first novel I wrote I thought was really good. But it was shit. It was utter and total unpublishable shit. I thought it was good. People I asked, said it was good. Now I've stopped asking those people. The better I get at writing the more painfully aware I become of my mediocrity (I compare myself to all the greats).

Now I've published two novels and know I've much yet to learn. But here's what I've learned. Apart from just the effort in writing it's actually quite easy to write a publishable book, no matter how stupid one is. The rules aren't even tacit. There's tonnes of "how to write books" that spell it out. Publishing houses write clear rules in bullet point. It requires effort to avoid to read these rules when submitting.

Here's my theory. I think the problem is that writing is a creative venture and most people write for fun, and like their books to take them where their imagination takes them. They want the reader to have the same interests as them, and don't like explaining things that get away of their "brilliant" ideas. They just type away. Once there's all the rules to follow, most writers think the fun is sucked out of it and it screws up their creative process.

So either they stick their heads in the sand and hope they're Van Gogh, and are a misunderstood genius, and its simply a question for their genius to be discovered. This never works. I think the majority of the 98% unpublishable novels comes from this group. This group will never succeed.

Or they make an effort to pay attention to the rules and manage to find the time to write anyway and do manage to produce a novel. They still often end up in the 98% unpublishable pile because they're still learning. A major part of any creative endeavour is craft. It takes a few failed novels to find one's voice and to figure out what works, and what doesn't. I don't think this requires intelligence, just persistence and ability to take criticism and learn from it.

The bottom line is that I think that it is quite easy to end up in the 2% publishable pile if you go about it systematically and work at it. You don't need to be overly clever or especially talented. All published writers I know, (and its a few now) all were successful for the same reason. They treated it like a job. A fun job, but nonetheless a job. If you do that you're already in the elite, unpublished or not.

That said, even if you're in the 2%, your chances of being published are pretty slim. But at that level you get to have a dialogue with publishers and editors and you get all the information you need. That was at least my experience.