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You may have read the news: Miss Snark is retiring from blogging.
In the two years that Miss Snark has been pseudonymously writing about the life of a literary agent, the public perception of agents and the publishing industry has been irrevocably changed. Sure, there were blogs by publishing professionals before, and will be after, but her contribution is difficult to overestimate.
Gone is the illusion of agents as stuffy guardians of literary elitism, and the contradictory illusion of talent-blind failed writers conspiring to undermine creativity. We now know that agents are human, have educated and informed but necessarily subjective tastes, genuinely love reading, have a job to do that goes well beyond reading unsolicited submissions and only so many hours in the day, and have a virtually bottomless well of patience and respect for writers and their sensitivities. (The good ones, at least.)
Miss Snark's blog set a high standard for what could be achieved with a (free and ad-free) blog about publishing. From amusing rants on publishing in general, and nitwit slushdwellers in particular, the blog grew to become a major destination for writers looking for advice on seeking representation, and demystifying the publishing process. Many stayed, forming an impromptu community in the comments section of each post, where her advice was argued, clarified, expanded upon and sometimes refuted. Successful writers, industry professionals and passionate readers mingled with hacks, ne'er-do-wells, nitwits and wannabes, mostly with the shared goal of making publishing seem less daunting, confusing and capricious.
But it was her combination of humour (from the sublime to the cynical), deep understanding of how publishing really works, unpolished tell-it-like-it-is bluntness, sheer frequency of updates, and astonishing dedication to providing opportunities for unpublished writers to learn from their and other's mistakes that kept us readers coming back.
In her pithy posts, a dose of publishing reality became our drug of addiction, and the writing blogosphere is waking up today to some heavy withdrawals.
Thankfully Miss Snark's blog will remain, so if you still have a question for her, search the Snarkives.
And please remember to always FOLLOW THE DAMN DIRECTIONS.
I love Miss Snark. You probably love Miss Snark, unless you're a nitwit. Time to show her a little of that love.
Here are some web badges I've whipped up so you can let Miss Snark know that you miss her, without seeming like an email stalker. Feel free to use them on your blog. You can copy and paste the code below each image into a post, or your blog template.
Please Note:
Images are hosted by ImageShack.us.
Disclaimer: I don't work in publishing. I'm not going to pretend that I have a thorough understanding of the business. I'm fairly sure no-one does. I don't think that paying attention to the publishing industry has given me some unique insight. It's not like I work for a government contractor.
There are problems in the publishing industry. Unless you're writing iambs by candlelight with a feather quill from your pet dodo, you probably know what a few of these problems are. Likely, you've also whined, grandstanded, and otherwise complained over these problems in coffeeshops, writing classes and convention after-parties, coming to no conclusion other than that the industry must be run by retards.
It takes a special kind of arrogance to think that you have come up with a solution to the problems that is both a) practical, and b) hasn't already been considered, tested or enacted by someone in a position to make a difference.
Arrogance is okay, though. It takes a special kind of arrogance to believe anyone wants to read your work. But if that arrogance extends to thinking everyone in publishing is stupider than you, and your only contribution is unoriginal, unworkable ideas, then you're just like every other schizophrenic barfly who thinks he's running for President.
The problems in publishing tend to break down into four categories, depending on who they affect:
Readers: Books are more expensive than they used to be, so many to choose from, this book sounds interesting but I don't know if I'll like it enough to buy it new, the new book by Favourite Author sucks compared to their earlier stuff, no-one's writing the books I want to read, these authors are all so rich they don't understand me anymore, I could write a better book by squirting ink out of my ass.
Publishing Industry Professionals: Paper costs rising, reading audience declining, annual profits not rising fast enough, no one buys short story magazines anymore, hard to differentiate new product in crowded marketplace, hard to stay two years ahead of the trends, authors are egomaniacal crybabies who think our job is to print money for them, I should just write a book myself.
Published Writers: Publishers only care about Big Name Author, they won't pay for me to stay in nice hotels while I bitch about doing signings, the Borders in Bumfsck Iowa won't stock my book, NYTBR won't return my calls, I can't feed my 87 cats on this advance, my royalty check seems to be missing a few zeros, I think I could've been a lawyer, what do you mean I have to wait for returns?
Unpublished Writers: Help! I'm drowning in the slushpile! Won't someone please validate me? There must be a way I can bypass actually writing a good book and get into print quickly so I can show all those haters who don't know who the fsck I am.
Unpubs tend to focus on the slushpile, not because it's the worst problem (it isn't), but because it's their interface with publishing, the Iron Gates of Approval that they're desperate to sneak under. Of course the slushpile is broken, if they don't immediately receive a grovelling acceptance engraved into a gold ingot. "Reclaim the slushpile!" they cry. "Asylum doors stand open! Change the system, so that my crap gets in."
Of course the response from the publishing industry is silence. Or a form letter containing a transcription of silence. Because as far as the industry is concerned, the slushpile isn't broken. Good writing stands out like the effervescence of a just-opened Perrier bottle when you're standing in a lake of fermenting pus. (It could happen, and you'll want a Perrier when it does.)
It's possible, even likely, that publishing will change dramatically in the coming years. But the slushpile ain't going away anytime soon, and the other problems really ain't yours to fix.
Imagine for a moment that every problem in publishing was solved. Readership doubled, and doubled again. Improved, targeted marketing allowed every reader to find books they wanted, and those readers bought more books. Sales went through the roof. Advances and royalty payments got sweeter and sweeter. Ten times as many books were published.
There will still be more manuscripts written than there are readers interested in reading them.
Even if no-one else took up the pen, the odds on publication might shorten from 1000-to-1 down to 100-1. That's still 99% rejection. If there was a proportional increase in new writers, agents would needs teams of slush readers to comb through hundreds of thousands of submissions.
Or imagine that magically, writers everywhere start improving. They hone their talent, postponing submission until they're convinced that their work is as good as they can make it. But the market can only support so much product. More rejection slips are handwritten, and the books that make it are great, but ...
The song remains the same.
Really, the "problem" of the slushpile could be halved, overnight, if agencies started insisting that every submission be accompanied by a signed statement reading "I have read and adhered to all the submission guidelines", and trashing any submission that doesn't.
Since that isn't going to happen, you might as well just "write a better book", or get used to disappointment. Or just stop writing, and make a real difference to the slushpile.
If you think you can fix publishing, you need to do a couple of things:
If you're not prepared to take these steps, you're just adding more noise to a discussion already choked with a million little whiners.
At least you're not writing. There isn't any problem in publishing bigger than your craptacularity.
[Updated, see bottom.]
Howe's Law: Everyone has a scheme that will not work.
It's about time we had another axiom. I was going to work on something else today but this just came up: a post on a blog humbly titled Working Toward the Betterment of Publishing. It's about ... (pause for groan) ... Web 2.0, and solving the problems of the slushpile.
It's so full of wrong-headed ideas, it's funny. Not funny ha-ha, or even funny peculiar, but isn't it funny just how wrong someone can be.
Read it if you want (no, Mr Scalzi, you're not obligated). If not, here are the bullet points:
The author tries to counter all possible criticism in advance, and even demonstrates something approaching sarcasm by linking to my dissection of Web 2.0.
I'm posting a rebuttal here, because Mr(s?) Betterment of Publishing is an anonymous coward who doesn't even allow comments. So Web 1.0.
Based on? No publisher's market research project has ever asked their opinion. Seriously. Let's move on.
Readers tell publishers what they want every time they buy a fscking book. The problem is not the market research, it's the unpredictable connection between what has sold before and what will sell in two years' time when today's signings hit the shelves.
Market research sucks. People tell market researchers what they think they want to hear, and what they think won't make them look like an asshole. Market research never maps to actual purchase behaviour. Just look at the money wasted by the fast food industry, marketing moderately healthy meals people said they wanted but don't buy.
The advance is a fraction of the total cost of publishing a book. It's a pittance paid to placate authors that something is happening during the long journey to publication. It's the low-bid value of your silence. "Earning out" is unusual enough for established authors to joke "If a book earned out the advance, the advance wasn't big enough." A book only "fails" if it doesn't sell enough copies to justify taking the risk on the next one.
This is why WTtBoP doesn't have comments.
This idea is just so bad I can't believe a human thought of it. Can you even imagine the uproar amongst the great unedited masses if agents used computer algorithms to screen the slushpile? How would you feel if your rejection slip read "806 instances of: Fragment. consider revising." ?
Natural language processing is still a pipe dream, it's several generations away from being ready for such a "mission-critical" deployment. Software cannot tell the difference between Faulkner and syntactically correct gibberish. How would you define the filters? How many spelling and grammar errors would be permitted? What about experimental fiction?
If you think this idea has any merit, type a few pages from your favourite books into MS Word and turn all the grammar rules on. Until SkyNet becomes self-aware, and starts buying all the e-books on Amazon, and you're writing for the amusement of your artificially intelligent toaster, this idea is the worst kind of stupid.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say No real writer would ever let a computer determine the quality of their work.
Honestly, if you still give WTtBoP any credence after the last point, you might as well buy the land in Florida too. Let's have a website where 1000-word samples of the slushpile are posted, and readers can vote on the best! Hey, people can even get behind their favourites, and create pre-release buzz!
Oh, and:
Never mind that we have a system like this in place (called "short fiction magazines") that's already foundering. Never mind that a large portion of the slushpile consists of paranoid egomaniacs who would sue/stalk anybody who ever posts a remotely similar story to theirs. Never mind .. oh, just make up your own reason why you wouldn't want to participate.
These sites fail not because they "haven’t been tried by a major publisher or agent before", but because there's no incentive for ordinary readers to engage in this process. Why would they? Who wants to read unedited, unfiltered garbage? Who could possibly care enough about what gets published ...
Un-fscking-published writers, that's who. This solution only sounds attractive if you're part of the problem.
Please, please, stop bitching about what you think is wrong with publishing. The problems are not going to get solved by a few shitty writers blogging about how it could all be fixed with the magic of programming.
You have three choices:
UPDATE: I have to entertain the small possibility that I've been had, by an apprentice of what an Australian comedian once called "non-laughist humour". Surely, the author of the original post cannot truly believe in his argument, and that it was just "linkbait", as the author claimed in a gutless, abusive email.
See, the whole notion of a Web 2.0 solution hinges on the (unrewarded) efforts of ordinary web users, giving of their time to read and make comment on the thousands of slushdwellers, towards the "betterment of publishing". Yet the author doesn't even allow commenting on their own blog, because they're afraid of what they refer to as "retard farming".
Is there anything of substance left in their post to defend?
UPDATE: Tess Gerritson discusses the unbelievably spiteful pettiness of Michael Crichton, who inserted a fictional child rapist into his latest book to insult a critic. The New York Times investigates. (Last two links require free registration).
JA Konrath thinks you have ugly babies.
Literary agents Miriam Goderich and Miss Snark explain why your query letter sucks.
Seattle may be beaming at being recognised as America's Most Literate City, again, but I'm more amused that of the ten least literate, five are in California and four are in Texas.
The first reviews for the eagerly awaited new installment in Thomas Harris' oh who cares.
Prospect Magazine asks for, and receives, the most overrated books of the year.
Diana Peterfreund explains why your title sucks, and won't get used anyway. Pub Rants agrees.
And sobering statistics from Pub Rants. Extrapolated data: 80 query letters per day, 0.25% of which result in requests for full manuscripts. This is an exact measure of quality.
Victoria Strauss explains why scammers prosper, leaving out the obvious: most writers are idiots.
Rejecter explains why you won't make any money anyway.
Tod Goldberg hints at why authors shouldn't use MySpace.
Tess Gerritson admits that being a bestselling author is not a bulletproof vest.
Judith Regan, the publisher behind the OJ Simpson debacle, has been unceremoniously fired from HarperCollins. The ReganBooks imprint "will continue as part of the HarperCollins General Books Group," where it will be quietly dismantled and the staff reassigned to to Slush Division.
I can't help the feeling that Regan expected, even planned this, possibly as a way of breaking an otherwise ironclad contract. I call this the Skywalker Gambit, after Mark Hamill's attempt to break a TV contract so he could work on The Empire Strikes Back, using an automobile and a tree. At least Judith still has her looks.
Simpson's confession hypothetical murder memoir was of course cancelled, but if you're quick, and loaded, you can still snatch one up.
Ordinarily I'd save this for the recently established tradition of Weekend Updates, but this is just too good to make you wait for.
Rejecter, literary agent's assistant, slushpile marauder and 101 Reasons interviewee, told an aspiring POD author to stop writing.
Not "slow down", not "revise and resubmit", not "not for us". Stop writing.
'Twas a beautiful thing, to see those words together on the blog of a publishing professional.
Hopefully this is not an anomaly, not simply the frayed nerves of someone pushed a POD too far. I see this as a new backlash, a trend towards blunt honesty, the emergence of the Stop Writing movement.
(The admonition came as a result of a POD author appearing in the comments of another post, exhorting that traditional publishing was an "old nag" and that in the new world order, "there's going to be no pre-press filters, only post-publishing, so get used to it", and then posted a link to his PDF, which in this case stand for "Pile of Dog Faeces". Rejecter, and many other commenters, examined the finished product minutely, and pronounced it shit. Not shitty, but just plain shit, incomprehensibly awful navel-gazing prose poetry. Said author proceeded to chew through seventeen flavours of huffy, while comparing himself to Joyce, TS Eliot and e.e. cummings. Sound familiar?)
These statistics have done the blog-cha-cha in the last few weeks:
In 2004, Nielsen Bookscan tracked the sales of 1.2 million books in the United States and here's what they came up with:
- Of those 1.2 million, 950,000 sold fewer than 99 copies.
- Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies.
- Only 25,000 books sold more than 5,000 copies.
- Fewer than 500 sold more than 100,000 copies.
- Only 10 books sold more than a million copies each.
- The average book in the United States sells about 500 copies.
(From Bookends, where it seems to have started, though they claim otherwise. A print-on-demand shill calls it evidence of a "dying industry". Miss Snark weighs in with caveats.)
If you read these points (particularly the last three) and think "Hey, only 500 copies, what's the point of even trying?", then I say:
Bravo! Stop writing, and you'll have more time to read books written by people better than you.
Now, there are many reasons why these statistics are not representative of the industry as a whole. (They track ISBNs, not titles; they only count 70% of the retail market; the 1.2M figure includes backlist, small press, print-on-demand and even calendars; they don't include Amazon or WalMart; this only covers the US market, etc.)
But based on these numbers, the reports of the death of the industry are greatly exaggerated. Even on the most conservative interpretation of these figures, the top 25,000 books sold at least 180 million copies, an average of 7,200. (Make up a number for the unaccounted sales.)
Do you think there are 25,000 books in the world that are worth a damn? If you haven't cracked the top 25,000 yet, should we feel sorry for you?