Note: I’m not sure if the poster meant this as rhetorical, but I did want to respond, and my comment seemed to be getting quite long so I decided to bring it up here and make it a full post. No attack is meant towards the anonymous poster.
From the comments trail of my Monday post:
What I’d like to hear is a story of someone who did it the traditional way while being a complete nobody and knowing no one. Meaning: (1) no mutual friends with any agents, (2) never worked as an editor, (3) not married to a publisher, (4) an agent, (5) not a cover model, (6) not a celebrity, (7) not a big magazine editor, (8) not a great friend of a NY Times bestselling author, (9) no high concept book Hollywood would die to get, (10) has no mentor respected in the industry… (11) someone who is no one from the boonies, just sent a query on a good book, and voila…:)
I’m not quite sure whether or not this set up is meant to be viewed as a more noble or pure way of getting your book into print, but I am mildly amused by the supposition that most of 1-10 on that list above make it at all “easy.” Let’s take this hypothesis step by step, shall we?
(1, 8, 10) So basically not involved in the industry at all? Come on, now. No man is an island, and no one exists in a vacuum, and all of those other freindly cliches. In the process of learning about the industry, almost every single person out there manages to communicate with a published writer. I would never recommend anyone isolate themselves from discovering as much as they could about the industry — and one of the best ways to do that is to talk to people IN the industry. Join RWA and become at all involved in your local chapter and you’ll be fast friends with at least four or five published and/or agented authors within a few months. Hang out on an author blog or two and the same thing will happen. Go to a conference and you’ll drown in writers that would like you to play in their sandbox. And then you’re stuck. 
I can see it now:
“Sorry, I would not like to have a drink/go gambling/let our kids have play dates/start a book club with you, because, you see, you’re a published writer and I need to keep my street cred of not having any ‘connections.’ You seem like a fun, funny, with it kind of gal, but I gotta protect my rep.”
“Dear Sailor Boy, I will never forget the time we shared together. These five years have been a cornucopia of good times and good lovin’, but you see, I recently discovered that your mother is acquainted with a literary agent and thinks I should query her. Can’t have that.”
Quite frankly, friendship with anyone in the industry means exactly nothing. A) You have a friend, she gives you advice, she introduces you to her editor or agent, the editor or agent says to send her something, you do, and she rejects it (raise your hand if this happened to you — because it happened to me at least twice). Meanwhile, she gets something else in over the transom from a complete strange, loves it and signs it. B) You send to someone else over the transom, a complete stranger, they love it and offer (this has also happened to me). C) The friend of the friend of the friend you send to loves it, and offers (has also happened). D) You send to a ocmplete stranger, and get a rejection (yup, me again). Based on my experience, each of those four possibbilities have just as much chance of happening as the other. Because it’s the book that matters.
(The poster didn’t mention “has an MFA” but I suppose that would also be a black mark. We can call it 10.5.)
I think the person who goes in with zero knowledge of the industry, the hermit who lives in the cabin with the large stack of paper and a pen and has never heard of Writer’s Market, I think that person is probably the one who sends their tome to their favorite author instead of to a publishing house, who sends it into a contest (having coordinated a contest, I know this happens more often than you think). I don’t know if I can give you an example of someone who doesn’t know anyone else in the industry right now, nor would that person be commenting on the blog, because, hey, if they are plugged in enough to visit my blog, or if I know them at all, then that negates everything, right? It’s a catch 22.
A good worker in any industry is one who learns as much about the industry as possible. They take classes, if they need to, they buy books on the subject, they Google it and join a professional organization and try to talk to people in the industry to see how they work and what they need to do to succeed in this industry. You do that if you want to become a chef or a lawyer or a doctor or an accountant or a vulcanologist.
(2, 3, 4) I don’t think anyone in the comment trail below fits these descriptions. In fact, of the dozens of published authors I know well enought o have exchanged a personal email or two with them, I can only think of a handful that fit those descriptions: Lynda Curnyn, Sarah Mlynowski, Melissa Senate (gee, all Harlequin authors/editors) Erica Orloff, and my own agent, Deidre Knight. Is it so unusual for former editors to become writers? I don’t think so; back in college, everyone talked abotu becoming an editor in New York so that you could learn about the industry, much as people who hope to work in the government put in time on Capitol Hill. Yet I never hear anyone saying, “Oh, well, she got elected Congresswoman because she was a senatorial staffer.”
(5, 6, 7) I only know one person who wrote a book because he was a cover model, and I think Fabio’s romance was ghostwritten. He was a huge celebrity model, who not only made his living modeling, but got a host of other modeling and acting gigs (remember the margarine commercials?) because of his career as a romance cover model. He was like the Tyra Banks of paperbacks. Regarding my own “cover modeling,” I think the idea that any publisher would care that I have appeared on one Harlequin category and three small press covers is beyond ludicrous. It’s hardly a platform. It’s a funny footnote in my author bio. Likewise, I’ve heard of magazine editors and celebrities that write novels, but I also know that such celebrity novels are a tiny, tiny, tiny little portion of the publishing business. It’s bright, flashy, and gets a lot of press and maybe a bunch of sales, but then it disappears. And again, no one in the comments trail fits those descriptions, either.
(9) Okay, now this is just silly. So if it’s high concept, then it’s not just “a good book?” Or only if Hollywood is “dying to get their hands on it?” does it fall off the wagon of “good book” and become some sort of grandstanding hack job? Sorry for the snark, but I’m fresh off a writing workshop where high concept was bandied about as the “dirty word” that was ruining the publishing industry. The speaker said that high concept had no place in a book. She said other stuff too but I started daydreaming about my next high concept story and how I was going to write an absafuckinglutely fabulous story using that concept and stopped listening to her. . Wherefore the bitterness, people? It’s a tool, just like any other. Use it or don’t, but drop the whingeing.
My friends write both high concept and low concept stories all the time, and there’s no rhyme or reason to what gets interest from the publishing industry or from Hollywood. A marketable concept may get you a read, but it’s not necessarily going to get you a sale, and I’ve seen that happen more than enough times that I’m no longer baffled by it. “Great concept, doesn’t carry through.” You need that follow through on a book. If all you’ve got is the concept, well, we’ve all seen those Amazon reviews.
Quite frankly, I don’t have the slightest clue what Hollywood is dying to get their hands on. For example, let’s take Scott Westerfeld’s YA novels. He’s got a large variety of concepts going on with these books: a town where children born at midnight are given access to a secret world, a story of vampirism treated as an STD and the organization that stems the spread of the pandemic (or, as he puts it, “zombie apocalypse”), and a future dystopia where everyone gets plastic surgery to turn them beautiful at 16. What story got optioned? the one-off he wrote about professional cool hunters who race around Manhattan looking for the perfect sneaker. Okay.
(11) Well, I don’t know why the many, many people who shared their stories in the comments trail didn’t exemplify this (perhaps the assumption that by posting on a litblog they are automatically acquainted with a published author?) but off the top of my head (and a really splashy example at that), Stephenie Meyer, the author of Twilight. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t speak to its quality, but I can speak to its success. New York Times Bestseller List, sold as a high six figure deal that is reportedly the largest amount of money Little, Brown Children’s ever offered a debut author. She’s from Utah, she admittedly didn’t know a thing about how to submit books, she subscribed to Writer’s Marketplace, made a list of 15 agents, queried them, got one and sold her book. Period. (Oh, you say, but what about her high-concept vampire story, and the buzz and the movie deal? Yeah, fine. But I know half a dozen girls who sold their vampire stories this year, and another few dozen who DIDN’T sell theirs, so there’s no easy answer there.) And again, with the comments trail, as well as almost every single person I know that has sold a book. The thing is, these stories of people sending in queries, getting requests, sending in requests, getting offers, and publishing books? They are so commonplace, so normal, so utterly workaday that they are boring. No drama. But it happens. I’ve got a small circle of writing friends (the ones that do the “pens” thing) and of the five of us, four have sold our books, and this is how we did it:
1. Sent a query to an editor, who responded that she didn’t think it was right for her line, but try another line. Sent proposal to editor of other line, mentioning that first editor thought it might be a good fit. Second editor agreed, and bought the book six weeks later. No agent involved. Writer is married mother of four from British Columbia.
2. Me. I’ve bored y’all enough with my story.
3. Writer is Louisiana born, Texas accountant. She queries a bunch of agents, one takes her on; she shops her work, and sells it.
4. Writer works from home and is married mother in Michigan. Finals in contest, pitches to agent at conference. Agent reads work, takes her on. Several years and even more manuscritps later, agent sells two book deal for her.
5. When she sells, which will be sometime after actually finishing a project, five will be a young woman from Oklahoma who has taken writing classes under popular genre fiction writers. Dollars to donuts she will sell by querying agents, getting interest, sending in her work, getting offers, and selling it.
Slight variations, but the general theme is the same. Normal people with a good book and a query letter. It’s not about connections, or who you know, or what have you. It’s about having the right project, in front of the right people, and at the right time. That’s it, that’s all, it doesn’t matter how you do it. If you’re a nobodoy from nowhere who has never heard of the internet or a writer’s organiztion, just has a good story and a 39 cent stamp, or if you’re the networkingest networker celebrity ex editor cover model sister in law of Nora Roberts, it’s still right project, right people, right time.
February 1st, 2006 at 8:00 am
Well, since the poster only said they’d like to hear a story about that…I think we could just write him/her one.
Once upon a time, there was a poor unknown writer without friends (except for 13 cats and a badly mangled squirrel) who lived in a yurt nestled deep in a wood where no trees had ever been cut down and turned into paper…
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February 1st, 2006 at 8:17 am
LMAO Kristen!
If you don’t mind, I’ll continue it.
So he wrote on leaves and bark using the ends of burnt twigs, for no pens had ever been made. He got up early to forage for his writing implements each morning.
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February 1st, 2006 at 8:43 am
Well I guess I cheated to get published. I’m close friends with an editor…oh wait. She rejected me four times! I sold one of her rejects to a different publishing house!
Guess no cheat was involved after all. And the editor and I are still close friends.
~Ann, the nobody with no cover model experience, who knows no agents, has very few mid-level concepts–let alone high ones–isn’t married to a publisher, had no mentor, is currently not a celebrity, and who still sold the old-fashioned way.
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February 1st, 2006 at 10:46 am
Found your post through Ann Wesley Hardin’s blog, Diana. Loved it!
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February 1st, 2006 at 10:58 am
It was over twenty years ago, but Nora Roberts and Stephen King fit the bill on all counts (especially the boonies one).
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February 1st, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Bravo, Bravo, Bravo to you!
While I usually advise against debating anonymous comments or bad Amazon reviews (if you do that, I’ll fly to DC and snatch you bald-headed *EEEEG*), I’m glad you addressed this particular post.
Oftentimes, people will post something because they haven’t thought things through, are going through a bad day/time themselves and feel the need to lash out. And the shield of an anonymous post seems safe. They want to know…”Why hasn’t it happened to me? There must be a reason!”
Well, isn’t this a question all unpubs want to know? I know I want to know. But trying to find a pattern or formula or excuse or reason or favor or backscratch to show why a paticular person sold will drive you man. It’s just like the person who reads how to books (And Pam, I’m not talking about you, chica!
and interviews other writers to learn their “tricks” and “how tos” and “if I just do it like X, I’ll sell…” when the answer to all of this is quite simple — as you’ve stated:
WRITE A KICK @SS BOOK!
And that’s it really…you can network, join groups, read how to’s, study, go to conferences, visit blogs and comment on websites. You can know an agent, an editor or an author, all good things and encouraged, but what it comes down to is writing the best possible book that is in you.
But even then, it still might not happen on the first, or second or third go…
I wrote a great story for an editor who loved it, loved me, loved the concept, but since the direction of the line I was targeting changed, she had to (very remorsefully and apologetically) reject it. Why? ‘Cause it just didn’t fit in anymore. Nothing I did wrong, not that she didn’t like me, think I was a “very talented” writer or had a great voice. Things changed at the publisher and $hit happens.
So what do you do then? You go on to the next project and the next great book that’s in you. And you keep doing that until it happens for you. Perserverance…that’s what matters.
So to the anonymous poster, I say knock the chip off your shoulder, quit trying to find a reason why or knocking the efforts of those who put themselves out there and just spend all of your time, energies and focus on WRITING.
Good luck and great post, D!
Marley = )
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February 1st, 2006 at 12:03 pm
CW–good point. Anyone who is an aspiring writer who hasn’t read Stephen King’s ON WRITING is missing out on a fabulous book of not only his journey to publication, but also on the craft. And he knew NO ONE.
And think of J.K. Rowling? Hello? She fit this poster’s ideal…didn’t know a soul in publishing, was a poor single mother who wrote long hand, was rejected by a plethora of agents and subsequently, editors, until she finally sold on sheer talent and will alone.
But I don’t think their success is any more valid than someone who knows someone. It’s the work that speaks for itself, in the long run.
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February 1st, 2006 at 12:22 pm
I’ve known very successful romance writers who got published without knowing a soul in the industry–however, they became published way back in the Eighties before the advent of the ‘net, which enables us to get to know so many people in the industry, if we want to!
As for connections, a friend of mine heartily recommended my work to her agent and I sent it in. The agent declined – my stuff wasn’t her “cup of tea,” doesn’t matter that she loves my friend, her client. Yet, my first and former agent, I queried blind on the basis of the story and my contest credentials, she loved the submission and offered representation. It was only AFTER the offer of rep that I discovered the agency repped several romance writers with whom I was acquainted. And did that fact help me when the agent and I began realizing we weren’t the right fit? Not a bit.
Like Marley says, it’s all about perseverance. If you think connections will help you sign an agent or sell a book (unless you’re a celebrity with the selling a book part, then I’d agree with you), you’re dead wrong.
Cindy
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February 1st, 2006 at 12:32 pm
This is fascinating. I just wanted to chime in and say that I agree it’s nearly impossible not to “know” people if you’ve been around this business for a while. I am unpublished, but I’ve met people through RWA. Hasn’t helped me yet (other than the value I get just from knowing them as people, I mean). One dear friend gave me a recommendation to her agent. The agent subsequently passed. Another friend called up her ex-agent, who’d just become an acquiring editor at the house I was targeting. Again, I got rejected.
I’m the president of my chapter. We have a couple of powerhouse members. I’ve met one of them in person and exchange email with the other. I’ve also been critiqued by two NYT bestselling authors. And I’ve dined with Kathryn Falk in a small personal setting, not at an RT convention.
I have no celebrity connections, but my husband was an extra on LOST. Does that count?
Now, if I were to sell a book tomorrow, and maybe get a really nice deal, would there be people saying, “Yeah, but she knows Kathryn Falk and her husband knows the casting agent for LOST who knows the casting agent for Spielberg who recommended her novel to him and now he’s bought the movie rights”?
LOL, it’s amusing to think so because I just think I’m a nobody.
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February 1st, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Okay. Lynne, that’s so funny, because I feel the same way… as if after the fact, they point to your connections when in reality, they didn’t have anything to do with your book. I was friends with Julie, and she’d introduced me to her editor, but it wasn’t the editor I sold to, or the house, or the company or the genre or even the country! Ditto with the cover modeling. And AN EXTRA ON LOST? How cool! I just checked out the photos and stuff on your blog! I’m all aflutter for Sayyid, really. I’ve loved him ever since The English Patient. I watched Bride and Prejudice the other day and there’s this crazy scene where the Sayyid guy jumps into a crowd of dancing men and turns into (as one character says), “an Indian MC Hammer”. OMG, too funny! I was like, hmmm, would an Iraqi soldier do the chicken dance?
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February 1st, 2006 at 3:20 pm
I have a question on publishing that’s a little off topic… hope that’s ok! I checked out Publishers Marketplace on the Stephenie Meyer deal and it says it was sold at auction for three books. Does this mean that she’s gets paid that total for all three books? I ask because so many announcements are for “nice deals” but also two or three book deals. Does this mean that if your “nice deal” was for 10k and 2 books that it’s 10k for both books or per book?
Just trying to figure out what it all means. Thanks!
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February 1st, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Anon…first rule of Publisher’s Marketplace…people lie.
BIG WHOPPING LIES. Trust me on this. I’ve seen lots of creative accounting, as in counting the imaginary promotional dollars that the publisher promises to spend in on the deal with the advance…in other words, more than just the advance. This isn’t all the time, but probably more times than you think.
But on multi-book deals, the “nice” or “significant” etc is cumulative. 3 books x Y advance = the deal.
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February 1st, 2006 at 4:23 pm
The PM reports verge on teh ridiculous, because they really aren’t much help. A 1,000 dollar advance is light years away fro a 40,000 dollar one, adn yet they are still both “nice deals.” Yet that’s that system we’ve got, adn so that’s what we’re runnign with. PM is otherwise such a phenomenal service that i’m not going to quibble over reporting errors.
(A far better system, in my mind, is John Scalzi’s suggested one.)
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February 1st, 2006 at 5:22 pm
Brilliant post, Diana!
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February 1st, 2006 at 7:18 pm
When (notice — it’s a when — not an if) I sell, I’ll be an even more
traditional story — no conferences, no contests — just queries, queries,
queries from across the big cold ocean *grin*
Although I don’t know what makes _Twilight_ high concept. I’ve read it, and I thought it was a typical Gothic YA romance.
Plot-wise, I mean.
Style is another story.
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February 1st, 2006 at 9:14 pm
LOL, Diana. I think people have to justify it to themselves in order to keep from being too depressed. So, yeah, she knows people–that’s why she sold.
Yep, hubby was an extra, and they called him again last week to see if he could come shoot a scene the next day. He couldn’t, though, but he’s in their files for more work. His check came yesterday. OMG! Barely above minimum wage for all that.
His episode airs Feb 22. He’s the only American soldier with a mustache.
They took other pics on the set that day, but that’s one of the best. It was a camera phone and sometimes the pics are nice and big, and others they’re tiny. No one seems to know why (and every guy in that photo other than the two actors is a computer geek–LOL).
I haven’t seen Bride and Prejudice yet. An Indian MC Hammer? Oh dear, have to see it.
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February 2nd, 2006 at 10:26 am
Another former editor here (and not a Harlewuin one). The thing is, I worked in publishing for the same reason you mentioned people working in government — I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, and working in the industry was fascinating and informative. (Plus, you know, free books sometimes.)
But when the chance to stay home and really focus on writing arrived, I jumped at it. And yes, I know the editor who bought my books very well, but I also know that she wouldn’t have bought them if they completely sucked. Publishers pay money and take risks to publish a new author, and as far I’ve seen there are very few favors done, if at all.
And still? I value the connections I made while I was working, because they did make things a little easier for me — I’d known my agent, for instance, for a long time because she used to sell books to *me*, so I knew how she worked, and what she was like. With three kids and a husband and a lazy, overweight dog, I’m all for smoothing the path whenever possible, you know?
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February 9th, 2006 at 6:58 am
That’s what it is really about, Mrs Garvey, and I believe that’s what the original poster meant. Connections. Yes, sure your book would not have been published if it were bad, but did you really have to wait two years to hear your buddy editor’s answer concerning it? And I bet when you reminded that agent about being six month from your query (did you even had to send a query, I wonder, maybe just picked up the phone and asked if she’d be interested in that book), so I bet when you reminded her in six months or so, she didn’t write you a nasty letter saying she was too busy to care about being hurried by writers. That’s what connections are about — about doing business quickly and efficiently, instead of slow and enduring rudeness from people who can make or break your career, which seems to give them the superiority complex.
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February 9th, 2006 at 7:29 am
That’s what it is really about, Mrs Garvey, and I believe that’s what the original poster meant. Connections. Yes, sure your book would not have been published if it were bad, but did you really have to wait two years to hear your buddy editor’s answer concerning it? And I bet when you reminded that agent about being six month from your query (did you even had to send a query, I wonder, maybe just picked up the phone and asked if she’d be interested in that book), so I bet when you reminded her in six months or so, she didn’t write you a nasty letter saying she was too busy to care about being hurried by writers. That’s what connections are about — about doing business quickly and efficiently, instead of slow and enduring rudeness from people who can make or break your career, which seems to give them the superiority complex.
Wow, anonymous… you know, I’ve never once erased a comment from this blog that wasn’t spam, but this is a little uncalled-for. Pretty sure you’re the original poster, and that you are *determined* to put forth your conspiracy theories despite countless examples to the contrary.
Question: does it make you feel *better* if you’re told that there’s no way into publishing except through some back-door, casting-couch, old-girl network, secret club? Forget it. Give up. If you aren’t a lovely cover model and a sorority sister of the editor who is giving blow jobs to your agent then you might as well pack up your little manuscript and head home. Feel better now? Doesn’t matter if you wrote the most beautiful, most marketable story someone’s read in a century. They don’t know you, so they don’t care. It’s not you, it’s not your book, it’s the fact that the cold, cruel publishing world is a total secret-handshake club, and there’s no way we’re letting any riffraff in unless they’ve posed for at least three small press romance novel covers, worked as an intern at Little, Brown in 1985, and had tea with Stephen King.
Perverse comfort, I think, but whatever floats your boat.
EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has been published can tell you about a bad experience they’ve had. Every single one. I’ve gotten the nasty letter. I’ve been stood up for appointments the editor made to pitch my manuscript at a conference and then had THREE subsequent emails about “too bad we coudln’t meet up at that conference, here’s what my story is about” remain unanswered. Did I get sour on the whole industry and decide that I had to know someone or be someone to get published? No, I decided that editor wasn’t someone I wanted to work with and I stopped submitting to her. There are plenty of people who won’t be rude to you, plenty of people who don’t have “a superiority complex” and who aren’t interested in “slow and enduring rudeness” at all. People like that, and like my vanished lunch date (who, by the way, is no longer an editor) are the vast minority in this system.
And, byt he way, that lunch date — I met that editor through a friend who was the editor’s author, AND I’d had many hour long phone conversations with her AND SHE STILL STOOD ME UP. So, connections can also result in “slow nad enduring rudeness.”
And the editor who eventually bought my stuff? I didn’t know her from Adam and my agent had never submitted anything to her before either. And I think she’s the best. So there’s no marker.
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