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I keep seeing an ad on Google, paid for by a purported literary agency. It screams out: ”Do NOT Self-Publish!” In fact, here it is, sans link:
DO NOT Self-Publish
Literary Agency Submits Writers to Publishers. They Pay You. No Fees.
Hmm. What are they saying?
Here’s what I think: Nobody, not even the most illegitimate literary agency, not even the most desperate, is going to pay good money to beg authors not to self-publish unless they feel threatened.
Are they feeling threatened? Well, I would be were I they. Authors — and I mean good authors who know how to spin a tale, who know how to write excellent fiction — are fed up. Dianne Salerni of http://www.HighSpiritsBook.com, author of High Spirits, self-published after who knows how many years of rejections, and now she’s sold the film options to her very excellent book. That’s money no agent can claim.
That’s one example, and I could cite more…but won’t bother because that’s not the point of my post today.
I’ve watched author upon author spend years, sometimes decades, trying to find an agent, trying to get a big or even a small house’s attention. Regardless of how good their novels, though, they fail…unless they just happen to get a break in timing, nicking with present industry desires. I’ve also watched how very bad books get published during this same time period, novels written by either celebrities who couldn’t sign their name, or crap written by pap sucking hacks whose only virtue is an ability to catch the right fad or rave. …Like vampire books for soggy-pantied, panting teen girls, books that reek of the same rank stench that rises from the comic book pages of teen boy fantasies where those skinny, 4D-cupped scant-clad, drooling, sword-dueling wenches spread legs to scream like a cheap whore as the hero penetrates their slit. I’m sorry, but that’s not good fiction. That’s called “pulp,” and “pulp” was printed on “pulp” because it wasn’t good, but simply designed to satisfy a market — a cheap thrill of the moment market.
Fiction that deserves publication — fiction for readers, not stuff for horny teens or sicko thirty-something never-beens who hide in their rooms sucking sodas and eating junk food, devouring cheap thrills — mostly isn’t getting there unless an author just happens to hit the right editor of a small press, has some clout, or is a lettered celebrity. So it’s being self-published because authors are TIRED.
And authors deserve to be tired — tired of the run-around, tired of the hard-ball games literary agents and publishing houses play, agents and houses that never really read what’s sent in because they’re too calouse and too jaded to give a damn unless it smacks them in the nose with a barn-sized banner that screams, “This is going to make you a lot of fast money.”
So, yes, I think authors should self-publish. If they’ve given agents their time and queries, and agents snub them, screw it. Get that book out and get on with the next one and the next one. Follow your dream; screw the obstacles. Do an end-run, instead. And watch literary agents and publishing begin to sit up and whine because, suddenly, they ain’t making the money, honey. The authors are!
Just my take.
This is a reprint of an op-ed piece I just published on http://blog.thedeepening.com/
Tags: fiction, Independent Authors, independent publishing, novels, publishing, publishing industry, self-publishing, self-publishing authors
Amen. Preach it.
You’ve expressed what I’ve been slowing coming to realize. I’ve been trying to play the game of getting noticed by publishers or agents, and I’ve been mostly ignored. Not rejected. Ignored. No response at all. Why waste my time any more? Your post confirms the decision I’ve made in the past month.
So glad to hear about Diane’s book!
Thank you. I will, too.
congratulations on articulating a huge problem. fiction has gone the way of much else, catering to the lowest common denominator at the expense of quality and substance. so check this out: Let Slip the Dogs of Love, by first-time author Eugene Kachmarsky, precisely the kind of author of which you speak in your article, who persevered and finally made it. see the result of a victorious struggle with exactly the process you describe and decide for yourself. this book will change your life. it did mine. google it, it’s on amazon, or check out http://www.eloquentbooks.com/L.....fLove.html for a write up and author bio.
There is, however, one point I feel needs making.
How does the author know hir book is of ‘publishable’ (i.e. well written and a good read) standard?
I have no problems with self published specialty books, local walks, a guide to the history of your town, an aid for working with a special group. I do draw the line at new writers rushing off to self publish novels which have been rejected by agents/publishers- often because the skills are not yet honed – unless they have objective outsider opinion that the work is publishable and marketable.
Friends and family do not count. First novels and second and third and fourth can and often are learning experiences. A new writer looks back with fondness on them and with great relief that they were not published.
If a work is hard to slip into a genre slot or market niche, if it is well written and edited, then yes, maybe self publishing is the way to go. But rushing into self publishing without having experienced editors tell you the novel is worth it, might leave a writer with egg on hir face.
Absolutely true when it comes to work by the majority of wannabes, and wannabes — every one of them — ought to pay for a couple of diverse, expert fiction editor’s critiques before heading over to Lightning Sourse. BUT. I stand by my position because there are so many worthwhile novels being passed over…not even glanced at by agents and publishers in favor of badly written trash, if only because the trash has name-branding behind it or is guaranteed to get the buys because it appeals to a certain market segment that the “industry” has decided is their ticket to fast money.
Let the readers decide with their pocket money — real readers, not trollops and twirps looking to cream their underpants — and let those who publish garbage wither away, egg or even rotten vegetable waste running down their faces.
Oh, and I absolutely LOVE the genderless “hir,” pdr, though I think ‘it’ would drive the point home to the PC police a bit more.
Oh I’ve always been a user of hir, and s/he because it got up my nose always having his and he or the tiresome his and her he and she.
And yes, I’m with you about the rubbish published. I’ve had to review some of it. Those of us who write genuine historical novels as opposed to those crammed with sex, vampires or fantasy elements have a hard time getting published.