I am a failed writer in the sense that I have never had my fiction professionally published. These posts, which will run on most Fridays, are an attempt to keep myself creatively motivated and just generally discuss the creative process from someone trying to figure it out. I genuinely love the process of making things — any things, from writing to drawing to music to woodworking to baking. Maybe my own failures can be a source of amusement or interest to others.
Three months ago, I sent out a query for my latest novel to about ten agents. As of today, I have gotten responses from less than half of the agents I sent the query to. I am assuming two more are rejections, since they say if you haven’t heard assume a rejection. On the one hand, part of me likes to think that this is an improvement. My first query got universal rejection very quickly. One came back in twenty minutes. Twenty minutes! That was a touch deflating. So maybe people are spending more time with my work; maybe it has passed the “oh God, burn this burn this book!” stage. On the other hand, still haven’t had any acceptances, so I still objectively suck. But this does highlight just how long everything in publishing takes.
I listen to the Publishing Rodeo podcast, which is excellent. Both authors, Sunyi Dean and Scott Drakeford, say it took about 18 months from the time they got accepted until the time their book was published. Sunyi’s book was sold in a few days, Scott’s in a few months, so the length of time to get published doesn’t appear to be related to whether or not the book is a lead title. The time it takes is the time it takes, apparently.
And that makes sense. Publishing appears to be resistant to automation. It takes time to read books, it takes time to sell them to publishing houses, it takes time to sell them internally, it times to edit them, it takes time to create marketing plans, it takes time to make a cover, etc. Almost none of that can be automated. If you say “AI can do X”, I am going to laugh at you. And agent that uses AI to pick books is just going to end up with carbon copies of the midlist, and that eventually is going to be a dead end. Tastes change, as people get bored with the same thing. I already wrote an article about how editing is not AI’s forte. AI art is not something that attracts people.
And all this assumes that publishers know what they want to begin with. During the Penguin Random House/Simon Schuster merger trial, top execs admitted they had no idea why books sold or how to pick best sellers. You cannot automate what you do not understand. You could hire more people to do the work, but, again, if you have no idea if the work is valuable, then you are just throwing money away. The same applies to agents. Many agents read submissions after normal hours — their day administrative, editing, communication, and sales work take up their nine to five. But since they cannot know that a book will be a hit with editors, hiring more people to help is likely a sure path to insolvency. Some things, it seems, resist automation. The reason that self-publishing is faster is that the author pays upfront to assume all these risks. Sometimes that pays off. Most of the time, it does not.
And that is frustrating, especially for middle-aged writers such as myself. I only have so much time left after all. But it is, as they say, what it is. the intersection of art and commerce is not a five-lane highway or, better, a high-speed rail, but rather a sleepy, windy country lane. We can only travel as far and as fast as the road will bear.
Weekly Word Count
25 Pages.
Yep, 25 pages. I have started on a script. I am turning the Clockmaker’s Wife into a script. It is back to its historical fiction roots. I decided to try this because 1) I was stuck on a part of the story and thought a new form might help and 2) I have never done it before. It has helped with unsticking the story. I am sure it is ghastly, but it is fun. It is a completely different way of writing. Losing the author’s voice and having to surface the character’s interiority in different ways is a lot of fun. And, of course, not having to describe every little detail is freeing — that is what set and custom designers are for!
I haven’t walked away from prose — I am also plotting out the Sherlock Holes as Upper Clas Twit of the Year Winner in Spaaaaaaaaace novel as well. But in the meantime, I am enjoying my foray into a new form. I have no idea what I will do with the thing, but it is fun, nonetheless.
Seriously though — what do you do with scripts? I know where to send novels and short stories ot have my hopes and dreams crushed, but where do script writers go to have their lives’ work dismissed with a form letter?