Anonymous said...
Butt kissers advance, females more so than males, and getting published has more to do with luck than with skill. I've been out and about for fifteen years, have great credits, and yet not one agent I sub to knows my name. Fifteen freaking years, and I'm nowhere. There are many authors in my boat. However, I'm self-publishing because I can, and will gain recognition, an audience, make money without cost to me, building my platform reguardless. I'm good. Better than most. I may never get published the old way, but I can sure make my bones with readers the new way. It is Reader's Choice, with the world at our feet. Published authors know this and are indeed joining our ranks. Say what you will, but nothing I said is false. You cannot prove me wrong. Standard publishing is a joke. A bad joke.
9/15/2010 9:32 PM
So, this is a reply to the Writers Beware blog. The original post was an off-spin post related to the idea that publishing is not a crapshoot; specifically, it related to the lack of stats on rejections and publishing.
No, I didn’t reply to this person, as much as I wanted to. There’s no sense in arguing with someone who has such strong, warped ideas about the world, but doesn’t want to take responsibility for those ideas by associating their name with the statements.
Clearly they knew there was something wrong with the comments, or else they wouldn’t have had a problem claiming them.
And they’re right to leave the reply anonymous. If I knew this person’s name I’d never want to pick up their work. They’d have turned me off to their name for life. And they probably aren’t going to get anywhere with those attitudes, because I can’t see people wanting to work with someone who is clearly arrogant and unwilling to learn what it takes to reach the success they want.
And no, I don’t mean they should learn to butt-kiss.
I’d like to point out that there’s no reason a woman’s butt-kissing should be more successful than a man’s.
Sexist comments aside, I have a big issue with people who don’t take responsibility for their own lives, in any aspect. Blaming others is unproductive. It doesn’t make people sympathetic towards your plight. And it suggests you aren’t willing to acknowledge your faults in order to improve.
And if someone doesn’t improve, it’s not a mystery as to why they haven’t succeeded in 15 years of trying.
This Anon made one statement that’s absolutely true: you can’t prove them wrong. Irrational is as irrational does. There are no stats on butt-kissing, and if I don’t know their name I can’t judge the quality of their work.
I’m beginning to think their comments were the bad joke, not ‘standard publishing.’
~Marina
If Anonymous honestly had great credits, things would probably be different... heh...
ReplyDeleteBut then, I don't entirely deny the existence of luck, either. Twilight and Harry Potter were books that were initially rejected left-right-and-centre. Unless... the authors were bad at writing query letters?
Although it's important to have perspective on the random and unpredictable (I'm thinking this now because I'm listening to an audiobook of The Black Swan by Taleb), for human beings it's basically absurd to write off effort or not seek an explanation. There's always something you can do, whether or not randomness and luck are working against you. You've got to work against them, too!
-bn
His first sentence really poisoned his whole approach. Let me polish up his turd by stealing the one thing I agree with and modifying it. Self-publishing in the Internet Age is certainly one of the several lanes on the highway to Success, but I want to see my name on somebody else's magazine, too. Not to mention that I'll be wanting one of my own one of these days.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, it seems to me that Writing (fiction, leastwise), a field where editors neither see your picture nor read anything about your biography save what you throw into the cover letter, is the one field where you can be judged purely on the merits of your work.
If this guy (I make the obvious gender assumption) hasn't been...whatever his complaint is...in 15 years, he hasn't been writing enough, submitting enough, and/or he hasn't been improving enough. It's hard, but it's not THAT hard.
David: I agree, there was a little nugget in there. Electronic publishing does let more authors reach readers, which is great. I have a feeling this individual will have a rude awakening when their stories don't sell well there either. Meritocracies are great!
ReplyDeleteBen: I agree with you too, timing comes into it a lot. But I think that’s a little different than plain ol’ luck. Sending it to the correct people also comes into it a lot, I think. Your manuscript has got to reach the right eyes. I think that's a reason why stats on rejections wouldn't really tell us anything. If someone picks the most appropriate agent/market for their work right off the bat, they probably won't have to go through the tons of rejections others face. That's where knowing your readership and the business comes in.
I also found the comment about agents not knowing their name to be weird… those people probably see nearly 1,000 aspirant names a year, and then probably 20,000 character names. And if they don’t like the work enough to offer it representation, they’re supposed to remember who wrote it?
I think the guy was having a bad day. lol
ReplyDeleteI say let him and everyone with his attitude, self publish. That should lessen the work load of every agent and maybe give some of us a better shot.
I have to hope something like that will happen, because I haven't figured out how to 'kiss butt' from thousands of miles away so I can advance.
Marina, what's the latest news on your work int the WotF?
I just submitted a story for next quarter.
Hi James! Yeah, probably was a bad day. I don't have a problem with e-publishing, I think it's likely that a few good books don't reach their readership and e-pubs give them a second chance. However, I think there are some people who think they can use it to "bypass" the system to get to consumers--when they don't realize that the system is based on what consumers want in the first place. So, if you've got evidence of consumeability, e-publishing makes sense. Course, it’s still not a magical fast-track.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, if some of the e-authors want to give up on traditional publishing, well then… more paper for us, lol. (Well, guess my comments could apply to self-publishing in general, not just e, but I can’t make the paper joke that way).
And I’m not exactly sure what this mystical “butt-kissing” entails.
As for WotF… My current status is this:
Q2- still officially in limbo
Q3- arrival of entry unconfirmed :-(
Q4- entry should be subbed electronically in the next couple of days.
Makes me think about the old saying about quitters never win. Quitting isn't just saying "I'm not doing this anymore". Quitting is whining about the industry when one should be focussing upon the improvement of their own work so they can be recognized/published.
ReplyDeleteExactly!
ReplyDelete