Howey: Self- vs. traditional publishing = false equivalence

[Jo Zebedee]

Agreed ... there is a big chasm between 'good' and 'good enough'

The question for me (at least) is how long to hawk my 'current best' work around the agent/publisher route (knowing it is not as good as if I redid it from scratch) ... or should I simply take what I have learnt and spend that energy on the next project ...
... particularly true of Manuscript 1

You should write book two as you hawk book one.

I got an agent relatively quickly - I'd been writing about three years at that point. But it still took about a year and a lot of rejections, plus three major rewrites to get her. I had no interest in my first book although, once I'd rewritten it something like eighteen times I got a few fulls, to the last 5 percent of an open window and 3 small publishers' offers on it. I had never ruled out self-pubbing as an option for it - space opera isn't the easiest genre to sell (though it's a bit more in vogue now.)

The whole industry is slow. Think of the snagging the agent time as practice for the next stages of the process. but in a while this leaves me little pressure - I've written a lot in the three years since I came here and got serious, enough I can take my time and enjoy what I'm writing a little more, knowing it will be years before anyone's ready to look at what I'm writing now.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

And when I read Brian's post I damn near wept. (Sorry Brian.) I don't know why your book didn't get picked up. But the scary thing is that I don't think you do either. You're guessing. I don't say this as a mean thing. This is just the reality of living in a vacuum of feedback.

Aren't you making some assumptions there? One is that because he hasn't published his work he has therefore received no feedback (or at least no feedback that matters). And the other is that he hasn't learned enough, that he hasn't improved enough, over the last several years to recognize his earlier mistakes and learn to correct them.

A disclaimer here: It happens that I have recently given Brian quite a bit of feedback on his writing. But whether that was valuable feedback or not doesn't come into this, because that was all within the last couple of years. I have no idea what his writing was like five years ago, or ten years ago. I didn't read what he was writing then. He did. And I respect him enough (as I would respect anyone else who said the same thing) that when he says he knows now that it wasn't good enough, he isn't guessing. Because that would mean that all the work he has put into learning during that time was wasted.

And that would be very sad.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I don't know why your book didn't get picked up.

Oh, I can easily see major problems with it now. What I write now is far stronger, but only because I've enjoyed wonderfully critical feedback.

When I'm published I plan to start a thread showing the first 250 words of my Chapter 1 at initial draft, completed first draft, and final draft. The difference, even now, is palpable.

This is just the reality of living in a vacuum of feedback.

This has always been a serious problem in the past - but I think that Critiques on chrons can help immensely. We have some solid writers on here who can comment on more advanced issues such as structure and pace.

Still not as good as having an editor, but obvious issues can be picked up.

I would love to see more of our self-pubbed writers post up working drafts to the Critiques board, because:

1. it could help make their work stronger

2. it would help expose their work to other chronners, and help with developing a following

Ultimately, it's up to the individual, though.

 

[psychotick]

Hi Teresa,

Yes I quite possibly am making some assumptions. I don't deny it.

But lets take the argument away from Brian since I've maligned him enough. Lets talk about writer Joe Blogs whose just produced his first book, and is trying to submit through agents etc. How does JB know if his work is any good if he does not get anything back from them?

Yes he can go to some crit groups. And say he does - are those crit groups representative of his audience? Now say he goes to one and they say too much telling, not enough showing - what does that mean? (I mean in terms of his writing.) Yes the group may be right, and lets assume from a technical stand point they are. But does that matter to his readers? And his readers have to be the ultimate judge of his work.

So he goes back, rewrites for a year than returns to the group and they talk about apostrophes and purple prose. Another rewrite another year. Then its active and passive voice. British English vs American. Etc etc. And all the time JB's book is not out there being judged.

Then finally five years / ten years down the track JB comes back and says - wow my writing is so much better now. Maybe it is. Maybe it actually isn't. And all the changes he made were not the things that his readers would care about.

Now I'm not saying that other authors don't know a thing or two about writing. That many editors can't find common errors. But this overlooks the fact that writing is an art and the guts of it is communication. Communication with readers. And readers are the ones who will judge a book and a writer as a success or not.

Now if you self pub you get that feedback with readers and you get your barometer. That's good even if the feedback is bad. If you try to go trade you don't get that. Instead you have to hope that you'll get feedback from agents and industry professionals who hopefully know what readers want. But if they don't even bother sending you rejection letters let alone feedback (and I'm not saying that it's their job to do so) then you are left sitting in the dark, guessing as to why they won't send you a letter - and too often assuming that it's because there is a problem with your writing. It may be. But it may just as easily not be considering they have far too many manuscripts to read and far too few they can actually take on.

And while I'm on a roll lets consider 50 Shades. Is this a good book or a poor one? (I have no idea since I've never read it.) But plenty of writers tell me it's poorly written. Yet it sells millions, which means that millions of people like it. So if the author had spent ten years rewriting the book to the standards of other authors and literary critics would it now be selling tens of millions? Somehow I doubt it. Or look at it from the other side. How many literary masterpieces are out there that almost no one reads, because the book may be magnificently written, but readers simply don't like it?

This is JB's problem. Until his book is out there by whatever means he's sitting in the dark.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

So let's assume you send your book to 20 agents and get zero responses. That's feedback - your book isn't doing it. Let's assume you get feedback and improve it. (Assuming you've chosen betas with care.) and you send it out again and get some nibbles. That's feedback. You employ an editor and improve it. You get some interest, maybe an agent.

The thing is the book WILL be inproved over that process if you're willing to seek good betas (something I've never had a problem finding provided I'm happy to reciprocate) and make the appropriate changes. And surely it's better being improved in private than shoved out half-baked with your name on the cover, all because you'd rather have it out there than make it the best it could be. I'm not saying anyone here does this - the only self pubber I read from here is very diligent in revising. But it is many self-pubbers.

The agent haul is there for a reason- you have to make the story good to get one. And until you do, the lack of feedback is all you need to know.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

I disagree Springs. Knowing only that your work isn't good enough doesn't help you to learn what is wrong with it or how to fix it. Having actual feedback is far more useful than a flat rejection. You make the distinction yourself. When says no, then you go get it beta'ed or crit'ed. Having an agent say no doesn't do anything constructive. We should be getting our stuff looked at by others anyway, regardless of agents or slush readers.

 

[tinkerdan]

This assumption is more damaging than helpful.

The agent haul is there for a reason- you have to make the story good to get one. And until you do, the lack of feedback is all you need to know.

This assumption could easily get us to that place of thinking that every submission that these agents get go through this system and are scrutinized this way and that we can therefore assume that if it was rejected that it means that we somehow have failed somewhere along the way and need now to make adjustments that improve the work. It would be wrong unless we are agents and we are there seeing that this is exactly how it happens when the usual reports show that the number of manuscripts they receive far exceed what most could read in any given month.

I'm going to admit right now that I'm the worst judge of my own work. I might one day think I'm a genius and the next day a moron. How many writers are natural manic depressives and how many have been driven to that? A suggestion that the work doesn't meet the standards might be right if supported by evidence but the assumption with no evidence is not a good measure. I know of an aspiring author who is stuck on one book because of this and I have no Idea how many times he's rewritten to accommodate assumptions and even to accommodate writer group critique.

He needs to move to the next book but won't until he knows he can write and this is all based on assumption from rejection that he just has to tweak something to make this work. The writing was good the first time and has improved; there is no doubt, but the path he's taken is nothing but utter frustration.

He could burn this one and start anew and do that each time he's rejected and he'd be slightly better off.

If he self-published and even if it were under a pseudonym he could at least look at his lack of sales and say,'Hey. Look. Those agents were right.'
Or:
He might sell a few copies and find out that the readers enjoy his writing.

The point is that at some point you need to burn it or self publish it or you're doing the same thing over and over and over and over...

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

This assumption could easily get us to that place of thinking that every submission that these agents get go through this system and are scrutinized this way and that we can therefore assume that if it was rejected that it means that we somehow have failed somewhere along the way and need now to make adjustments that improve the work. It would be wrong unless we are agents and we are there seeing that this is exactly how it happens when the usual reports show that the number of manuscripts they receive far exceed what most could read in any given month.

As a former acquisitions editor, I can tell you that is exactly how it happened on our end. I can only imagine it's exactly the same for agents. Every single work I ever rejected failed in a myriad of spectacular and disappointing ways. Some suitable to print here, most not so much. Basics of grammar, spelling, punctuation, dialogue formatting, dullness, ineptitude for telling a story, plagiarism, and violating the basic laws of nature. To say nothing of idiotic cover letters. So why pound your head into the wall as an agent or acquisitions editor or slush reader? For that faint hope of reading something good.

The slush pile is a never-ending festering heap of crappy writing. We would easily receive over 40 mss. a day and would never get through even a fraction of that if we were stupid enough to read them all the way through. But, lucky break for us, you don't have to read the entire ms. to know if it sucks. Usually the first page is more than enough, most often the first paragraph.

So in the time it took you to read the paragraphs above, the slush reader has already more information about the work than they actually need to make an informed decision to read on or reject a submission. It's a rarity that a submission will get more than that, and rightfully so.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I disagree Springs. Knowing only that your work isn't good enough doesn't help you to learn what is wrong with it or how to fix it. Having actual feedback is far more useful than a flat rejection. You make the distinction yourself. When says no, then you go get it beta'ed or crit'ed. Having an agent say no doesn't do anything constructive. We should be getting our stuff looked at by others anyway, regardless of agents or slush readers.

I didn't suggest using feedback from an agent in a vacuum. If it's not working to hook then you work with betas/editors to identify why it's not working - the agent's lack of response tells us something isn't working; it's us to do the work to figure out how to change that.

Tinker - again, I didn't suggest making changes because one agent didn't take it but to look at it against a batch. If not one of your targeted, active agents respond with more than a not for me, thanks, then your story isn't standing out. Which is feedback to go and make it stand out. And then you're back to your betas/editors. I never send anything - not even shorts out - without beta feedback.

 

[HareBrain]

I find these discussions strangely fascinating. And I can see Greg’s point -- any quick trawl through reviews of bestsellers on Amazon will show that many, many readers enjoy stuff that industry professionals might turn up their noses at for being poorly plotted and written – and enjoy it because they don’t know any better, don’t know that they don’t know any better, and wouldn’t care anyway. And if you want to write for this audience, you might well be better off experimenting and getting feedback "in the wild" rather than seeking to impress agents or even beta readers, most of whom (if they are also writers) are likely to have more-or-less "learned" tastes rather than just liking stories with lots of boobs and/or guns and/or Atlanteans. (BTW, I am not suggesting Greg or anyone else here writes for such an audience, but some successful writers do. Though probably not more than a tiny %age of those publishing stuff that “educated” readers wouldn’t touch.)

 

[tinkerdan]

There might be differing levels of acquisition editors which I'd be willing to admit I don't know. But my limited understanding of them leads me to believe many are getting their manuscripts from agents which just boggles my mind at this point when put into your context.

Sorry it's just my limited understanding I'm sure.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

There might be differing levels of acquisition editors which I'd be willing to admit I don't know. But my limited understanding of them leads me to believe many are getting their manuscripts from agents which just boggles my mind at this point when put into your context.

Sorry it's just my limited understanding I'm sure.

I offered up my experience because the publishing house I worked for did not require an agent for submission. So the works I was reading were more than likely on par with what an agent would get. That said there are a lot of "agencies" that are predatory and will literally represent anything. We had a standing policy against certain agencies because of this. The letters from some of those "agents" were more of a punch line than honest attempts at representing the author.

 

[tinkerdan]

So the uniqueness of your position made you an agent of sort.
I guess that one would have to understand more of the publishing house that would employ it's own agents.

Still the typical slush pile for publishing houses tends to be skewed from that of the typical agent because either the writer would have to be somewhat clueless or in the know that that publishing house accepts direct submissions. otherwise the slushpile for publishers and for what I understands of Acquisition editors is usually a stack of submissions that are already violating one of the guidelines for acceptance and would easily be turned down for that alone. I wouldn't expect the quality to be that high.

I offered up my experience because the publishing house I worked for did not require an agent for submission. So the works I was reading were more than likely on par with what an agent would get. That said there are a lot of "agencies" that are predatory and will literally represent anything. We had a standing policy against certain agencies because of this. The letters from some of those "agents" were more of a punch line than honest attempts at representing the author.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Peter Graham, who we miss, used to explain how 97% of submissions could easily be ruled out on grammar, exposition, etc in the first few pages. If you can get yourself into the 3% who don't teip up on the basics, you have a good chance.

 

[tinkerdan]

If we consider this to be true:

Peter Graham, who we miss, used to explain how 97% of submissions could easily be ruled out on grammar, exposition, etc in the first few pages. If you can get yourself into the 3% who don't teip up on the basics, you have a good chance.

And not all of those submissions are published that means that less than three percent are published and if we then consider the number of new books published traditionally in a year.

That's a staggering number[the more than 97%] that I find it difficult to believe that even at one paragraph all the agents in the world would be able to actually read without spending 24/7 and nearly going blind in the process.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Yes he can go to some crit groups. And say he does - are those crit groups representative of his audience? Now say he goes to one and they say too much telling, not enough showing - what does that mean? (I mean in terms of his writing.) Yes the group may be right, and lets assume from a technical stand point they are. But does that matter to his readers? And his readers have to be the ultimate judge of his work.

He should choose a crit group that was representative of the people who might read his book. Not at all hard in this day of online critique groups. Joining a group that critiques all sorts of fiction is where a lot of new writers go wrong. If you are writing SFF then you need to join a group that is made up of SFF writers, because they are also SFF readers.

How many of the people who buy a book even give you feedback? Only a small percentage. You will only be hearing from a vocal minority, and they are not necessarily representative of the people who you are writing for: the people who will love it and tell all their friends. They may have bought the book because they liked the cover, or they liked the description, and then hate the book because it was not really what they were looking for.

A critique group doesn't have the cover and doesn't read the description. They read the book that you wrote, not some book that they thought they were going to be reading when they read the description. And better, if they don't like something they can tell you why. With reviewers who are not writers you can get contradictory advice. One will say there is too much of X and another will tell you there is not enough. What to do? Ignore it because you can't please everybody? Figure that you must have got it right because you achieved a mid-point between extremes? Neither if you are wise, because they have both pointed out an area where a problem exists, but they have both misidentified it.

A good critique group will not only help you find a problem area, they will be able to help you identify it. Knowing the problem, you can figure out how you want to fix it. There is no such thing as too much telling unless it doesn't work. There is no such thing as too much or too little anything unless it doesn't work. The person who writes a review for amazon or who writes you a letter telling you how much or how little they like your book may just say, "This part bored me." That's about as useful as no feedback at all.

Writers, editor, and publishers are not some group that stands apart from readers. They are all of them readers themselves. Most of them are in the business because they love books.

And someday you become good enough so that you don't need as much feedback.





.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

So the uniqueness of your position made you an agent of sort.

I guess that one would have to understand more of the publishing house that would employ it's own agents.

Still the typical slush pile for publishing houses tends to be skewed from that of the typical agent because either the writer would have to be somewhat clueless or in the know that that publishing house accepts direct submissions. otherwise the slushpile for publishers and for what I understands of Acquisition editors is usually a stack of submissions that are already violating one of the guidelines for acceptance and would easily be turned down for that alone. I wouldn't expect the quality to be that high.

I'm not sure what you think you know about how publishing works, but it's clearly tripping you up in a number of ways.

 

[tinkerdan]

Yes: sadly there is a lot of that going around.

I'm not sure what you think you know about how publishing works, but it's clearly tripping you up in a number of ways.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Springs:

"So let's assume you send your book to 20 agents and get zero responses. That's feedback - your book isn't doing it."

This is exactly the sort of thing that is so very wrong and so very dangerous for writers. This is the thing that breaks them. This constant assumption that their work must suck because hey if it was any good an agent would have said something. But the reality is that even most good works won't get any feedback because agents have far too many people coming to them with books and far too few that they can actively take on.

No feedback is not proof of a book sucking. If I could say one thing to every would be writer who dreams of being an author, that would be it. Because I think of all those people out there whose dreams have been crushed and whose self confidence in their abilities has been destroyed, simply because they followed this train wreck of logic.

And then there's the other side of the coin, those poor bastards who sit there and take this logical train wreck one step further and say my writing wasn't picked up for this reason or that one, and then spend their every waking moment "fixing things" without actually knowing if it was the problem.

I mean lets leave writing for the moment and look at another human endeavour which is just as hard - acting. Go to Hollywood and look at the endless parade of would be actresses who have used exactly this same logic. They didn't get the part because they hadn't had their boobs done or their nose or what have you. It just doesn't seem to occur to them that no - they didn't get the part because there were five hundred other actresses trying for the same part.

So Springs please dump this very idea from your thinking. You go to twenty agents get ten rejections and ten nothing at alls, and instead of thinking your writing sucks you should think - I don't know anything at all about the quality of my writing from this. It could be good, it could be bad. And if there is a problem I certainly don't know from this what it is.

And along with this never allow yourself to follow the logical train wreck to the thought that if only my writing was better I'd get an agent. That's just **** logic. The reality is that while you're beating yourself up, you could spend a century improving your writing and never get an agent because they have five hundred other books to read. The power to get your book picked up by an agent is never in your hands. It is as simple as that.

No feed back is no feed back.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Hi,

Springs:

"So let's assume you send your book to 20 agents and get zero responses. That's feedback - your book isn't doing it."

This is exactly the sort of thing that is so very wrong and so very dangerous for writers. This is the thing that breaks them. This constant assumption that their work must suck because hey if it was any good an agent would have said something. But the reality is that even most good works won't get any feedback because agents have far too many people coming to them with books and far too few that they can actively take on.

Yet, for me, it was the motivator. To start getting feedback, and see that there was light at the end of the tunnel. So I'd say horses for courses on that one.

And then there's the other side of the coin, those poor bastards who sit there and take this logical train wreck one step further and say my writing wasn't picked up for this reason or that one, and then spend their every waking moment "fixing things" without actually knowing if it was the problem.

And I'll repeat (for the third time) that you seek people whose opinion you value, whose writing you like, who read the sort of stuff you're writing and are your betas, or use an experienced sff editor, and find out what might not be working. Writing groups are great for this - my writing group thrashed out so much with me in Abendau and Inish, collectively and thoughtfully. And anytime I listened, I made the darn thing better. Which is not to say all feedback does that - I've had my share of car-crash betas which have made things worse. But tailored, considered, knowledgeable feedback does.

So Springs please dump this very idea from your thinking. You go to twenty agents get ten rejections and ten nothing at alls, and instead of thinking your writing sucks you should think - I don't know anything at all about the quality of my writing from this. It could be good, it could be bad. And if there is a problem I certainly don't know from this what it is.

Since it was this sort of thinking that got me an agent and brought a trilogy up to the level of getting multiple offers I don't think I'll drop it. The bottom line is when I made the book stronger (because it was getting no offers) based on an experienced editor's review of it (in this case Teresa) I got offers. There was no magic formula - it was not good enough when I believed it was. It took me to get no bites from agents who were specifically looking for space opera, to ask myself if I needed to do more with the concept. If the quality of writing hadn't improved I wouldn't have gone from no interest to multiple.

And along with this never allow yourself to follow the logical train wreck to the thought that if only my writing was better I'd get an agent. That's just **** logic. The reality is that while you're beating yourself up, you could spend a century improving your writing and never get an agent because they have five hundred other books to read. The power to get your book picked up by an agent is never in your hands. It is as simple as that.

I got my agent because I rewrote the book from her feedback and asked to sub again. I didn't have to do that - I could have walked away and said the power to do something about getting an agent wasn't in my hands. But it was, by being prepared to work hard and listening to what was needed to make the book better.

You say about authors losing faith - this is a business of rejection. Stickability is part of what an author needs if they want to succeed (whichever route.) if I chose to get my motivation to stick around by being bloody minded and taking nos as an incentive to do better, that's my choice. It worked for me; it might for others.

No feed back is no feed back.

Consistent no feedback from agents, publishers is an indication to at least ask yourself why not. You may choose to do nothing about it. But the key word is consistent, not one- off responses. But if 100 industry professionals look at your work and show no interest, then why wouldn't you want to explore the reasons why? It took long enough to write the book - surely it's time wasted if you're not prepared to improve it?