I often use these daily essays to give me a chance to do first draft work on my projects. My NaNoWriMo drafts crop up here (which I'm unsure about participating in this year, if only because I don't know if I have a story that I want to tell that's 50k words long), as well as some of the preliminary Wooden O writings I eventually presented on (which reminds me: I need to write about my experience at the Wooden O). Much like my abstract that got me into the Wooden O in the first place, I thought I would pick up on what I wrote before (included below) and maybe see how I could edit and tweak it to make it a better query. Before I jump into that, I should point out that I've been more proactive than just talking about maybe almost kind of beginning to start getting into the position to perhaps try to commence an attempt at the thought of going after an agent again. I try really hard to keep the rejections from getting me down, though I put a lot of effort and time into the few I send out. This invariably means that I'm placing a great deal of value on the submission and allowing the rejection to hurt more than is proportional. I don't really know how to get myself out of this. I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but I have had a really easy life. I mean, if life were a video game, I'd be playing on the easiest settings on the computer with some of the best specs. I don't have cheat codes (I wasn't born into a lot of inherited wealth), but I've got it pretty good. Cishet white male that has a college degree, married, kids…yeah, most everything goes the way I want it to. Yes, I can't go to Disneyland every summer, but, on the great whole of life, I have little to complain about. That's why, I think, I take it so hard when I fail to get an agent. I normally don't fail. I usually succeed at whatever I'm trying to do. Even the hardest time of my life--when Puck was new and going through heart surgeries--I only had a couple of months total where I was unemployed. After leaving my job as a computer salesman (bleck) to student teach, I graduated with my BS degree in English education. I couldn't find a teaching job for the next year. That was really hard and frustrating, of course, but I never really thought, Well, that's it: You're never going to be a teacher. Like, that didn't seem possible; being a teacher was a goal that had merely been delayed. With writing, though, it's a different experience. It's hard to say why, exactly, this is the case. My hunch is that, while there's always a shortage of teachers in the state, the demand for new books, while enormous, isn't as large as the quantity of people who are trying to publish new books. I'm on the losing end of that equation. Admittedly, I'll never get published if I sit around believing that. I have to keep plunking away at the keyboard, I have to keep scribbling down my notes, I have to keep organizing my spreadsheets of potential agents. In other words, I have to try. Even if I do that, though, there's no guarantee. (Okay, there was no guarantee that I would become a teacher, either--no guarantees in life, after all) It's possible that the millions of words that I've written since starting college (not even counting what I did in high school) will never get more exposure than what this website affords. So this is me trying. (It's also me stalling, I don't know if you noticed that.) Here's my old version and then, afterward, the new one that I'm thinking about doing. You'll notice on the second version is a bit longer and personalized. Having done a lot of research on the process, I know that seeing the agent as a human who has interests aside from her job can go a long way to forming a worthwhile relationship. Since that's what I'm after--a business relationship in which the agent and I work together to make a great book that sells copies--I'm trying to be a bit more personable. Okay, enough stalling. Round One War Golem takes place in a world embroiled in horrendous war where massive war-machines known as golems are used--but only as support creatures. In the nasty mire of the trenches, Cori Nettleson decides to use her golem, Channa, as an offensive weapon instead. Round Two Dear Kate, Analysis
Well, of the two, I think I prefer the second one. I think it's more detailed. It's longer, which is okay. At 224 words, it's still on the short side, as far as queries go. You may have noticed that I changed Cori's last name, as well as shifting the emphasis of what the story has. What makes this whole process really tricky is the fact that there are 90k words (increased because, as I'm editing the thing, it keeps growing instead of shrinking) that I'm trying to distill into about 300. I don't mention anything about the other members of the squad, the fact that there's a magical replacement for electricity called feluvium (which is a word that I keep changing my mind about), and the dynamics between Cori and her best friend. In fact, when I rewrite this pitch, I'm going to try to incorporate that, too, in order to show some of the personal and emotional stakes of the story. Well, that's another step. I'm putting my edits into the computer--which I count as my third draft--right now. I'm on chapter seven (of thirty-one), but I'm not really worried about the fact I said the "manuscript is available" because there's usually a window of six weeks or so between submission and rejection/response. By the time she answers--whether I send this to Kate or not--I'll be done with the manuscript. … Yeah, now that I say that, it means that I'll get the agent interested, not really have the manuscript when she wants it, and then I'll have blown my chance. Maybe I shouldn't send my War Golem query yet. Hmm. Earlier in 2018, long-time fantasy* author Terry Goodkind stepped in some online muck. If you don't want to read the article, here's the short version: Goodkind put out a Facebook post with artwork from his then-upcoming book, Shrouds of Eternity. He said that the work was laughably bad and promised a signed copy of the book for the fan who could make the funniest caption for the artwork (which you can see above). It didn't take long before outcry over Goodkind's behavior got him to issue an apology in which he groused that Tor hadn't given him a chance to respond to the artwork before it was sent to the printers.
So, okay. In the context of Goodkind's experience, I can see why he'd be frustrated with the process. He is a popular author, having sold over 25 million copies of his books over the past twenty-five years or so. While I haven't read his stuff in years (more on that later), I know that he still moves a lot of copies. In other words, he's probably used to being treated deferentially by his publisher and getting his way in almost everything. But in the broader context of the entire debacle, I'm not really sympathetic to Goodkind. Though I've never even met him, I've seen some of his interviews and read some of his thoughts on things…mostly because I was a pretty big Goodkind fan back in the late nineties and turn-of-the-millennium. As a result, I've always gotten a weird vibe from him as a person. He has a pretty intense personality, and he struck me as rather humorless. So I have a personal bias against him going into this issue. More than that, though, is the idea that, even though he's a superstar author who's made millions of dollars for himself and his publisher, he is somehow above the need for common decency and politeness. If he has a problem with the publisher's selection of his book cover, he should take it up with his publisher. I mean, that's the whole idea of professionalism, isn't it? He's been writing and publishing for decades: Surely he knows how these things work? Maybe it's not the specifics of this, but the broader implications of what's going on here: Those with power, money, and influence are somehow above the rules that apply to everyone else. There's a pernicious tendency in our neoliberal-capitalism version of society that equates worth to money and the greater the money, the greater the worth. Goodkind makes a lot of money, but I don't think he's "worth more" than the debut author who's sitting at the table of her local Barnes and Noble, watching people deliberately dodge eye-contact. It's likely because I am in a profession that's written off by a great many people as glorified babysitting that I bristle at even the intimation that monetary considerations dictate the worth of any particular aspect of the world. On the other hand, it's people like Goodkind who make enough money for the publishers to take a risk on that debut author sitting in Barnes and Noble. Without people like Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyers, George R.R. Martin, and James Patterson, the publishing houses wouldn't have the wherewithal to invest in rising stars. In some ways, the success of someone like Brandon Sanderson opens up the possibility of another writer (I'm thinking of Brian T. McClellan, who owes Sanderson the exposure and mentoring that allowed him to make a career out of writing) having a go of it. Keeping those writers happy with the publishers is a way of ensuring consistent cash. I don't think that's motivation for Goodkind to be anything less than supportive of the book he's trying to sell, and the entire team that went into its making. While the writing process is itself a solitary experience, the idea that a single individual publishes a book is laughable. Countless alpha and beta readers, editors, marketing teams, agents, interns, fact-checkers, and more go into the lengthy process of getting a book out into market. (This is part of the reason that e-books are still "so expensive" when there isn't a printed component to purchase; the "hefty" price** of a book isn't in the pulp, but the people who put it together.) It's not about the success of the book--Goodkind is basically guaranteed to make money with whatever he releases--but about the kind of working environment that he's created by behaving this way. It baffles me that he would think it was a good idea to do anything that would diminish the hard work of those who were striving to see him succeed. And this leads to my largest problem with Goodkind: His philosophy. He's an objectivist, subscribing to Ayn Rand's school of philosophy, but with a fantasy veneer. Many of his books include lengthy speeches--some taking up multiple pages--by the protagonists about the evils of a non-libertarian society. His great evil is a fantasy-style communism, though it's clearly more Stalinism than even Marxism. Like most fantasy worlds, the bad guy is a dictator, but Goodkind also makes an argument that the dictator's behavior is guided by communistic principles, in much the same way Stalin was "guided" by communism. The solution, according to Goodkind, is essentially the Übermensch ideal of rugged individualism (seen in the flawlessly beautiful Kahlan and Richard) and standing up against the tide of collectivism. As a teenager, I really liked that. And, frankly, I still like the way in which Goodkind so grounded his characters in a consistent philosophy. That allows the reader to recognize what the characters value, so much so that you can almost start predicting what Richard will do in any situation, since you understand his worldview so well. At his best, Goodkind's handling of the internal philosophies of his characters, their decisions, and the action scenes that continually propel the story forward all coalesce into some thrilling fiction. While not to the level of the psychological complexities that Alan Moore created in Watchmen, it's still an impressive thing…when he's doing it right. Sadly, as his series went more and more into political tirades, the stories that Goodkind so forcefully asserts he writes fell by the wayside. Perhaps it was because he took so long (multiple books, if I remember correctly) to wrap up one of the major threads he'd introduced in the beginning of the series. Maybe it was because he firmly ended the series, then--as happens way too often (looking at you, Rowling)--couldn't leave his created world alone, so he kept writing more books.*** Or, maybe, I grew up enough to see that his libertarianism was toxic, his ideals of individualism were too simplistic, and his fetish with tight leather was juvenile. Whatever the case, I'm no longer a Goodkind fan…and this recent debacle doesn't really make me want to give him another chance. And that's sad. Goodkind is one of the foundational authors for why I turned into a fantasy writer. I still think of his early work fondly. But in terms of having a pull toward the books, the way I have with Pern or Prydain? No, not really. I've moved away from Goodkind's worlds and I'm not planning on returning. Final thought: Don't be a jerk to those who are trying to help you succeed, even if their best efforts aren't exactly what you want. To be rude about your team isn't a good look for anyone. --- * This is how his work is viewed, marketed, and sold by the public at large. Goodkind has long been haunted by this purported quote (I couldn't find the original source in my ten seconds of trying) where he tried to focus the conversation on the story he's telling, saying he doesn't write fantasy, he "write[s] stories". I can see where he's coming from, but that's not the case. The stories that he's trying to tell are best told through the fantasy genre--otherwise, he wouldn't have the world that he's created there. Anyway, that's why there's a footnote: He doesn't consider himself a fantasy writer. ** Let's be real a second: A date night at the movies, complete with popcorn and treats, costs more than a new hardcover book does. And the entertainment value from a book--especially if it's a long one--lasts far longer than the two-hour run-time of the latest blockbuster. Dollars spent per hour of entertainment means that a book will probably be the best investment for your money. (Some exceptions apply.) *** I'm sympathetic to this problem: He has spent years inhabiting a single world, with characters that he knows better than he knows his own family. How could he not want to continue telling those stories? Anne McCaffery had a slump in the quality of her Pernese books after All the Weyrs of Pern came out, Rowling released the puzzlingly canonized Cursed Child, Meyers tried to rewrite Twilight from Edward's point of view (then did a gender-bent version for the 10th year anniversary), and Goodkind should have left Richard and Kahlan alone after the Chainfire mini-series finished. It's a thing that happens to many authors. But I don't have to like it when it does. I can be a cantankerous person when I really set my mind to it. I'd like to say that my own bitterness has abated because of the pills I'm taking (with the dysthymia decreased, I don't have the same frustration as before), but there's still quite a bit of anger and disillusionment that swirls within me from time to time. An overwrought sense of justice adds to my feelings of frustration. I know what I'm supposed to do, I try to do my best, and it baffles me when people don't play nice. Strangely, though, it confuses me when people don't recognize how a system works and rage at the injustice of it. I feel like there are a lot of times when people identify the arbitrary nature of a system (e.g. grades) and decide, because of its arbitrariness, that it isn't important or has no bearing on them. When it comes to trying to get published, the gaps in the system are easy to see: The whole setup is archaic, using antiquated business models and frustratingly inept procedures (getting paid twice a year, for example, can make getting a home loan really difficult for a writer). And the inroads that self- and e-publishing have made have a lot to help chip away at the barnacles clinging to publishing. Nevertheless, the systems evolved the way they did in response to pressures that haven't been alleviated, even if they've changed in form somewhat. That is, editors, agents, and publishers have particular guidelines for submissions and contracts not because "that's how we've always done it", but because "we've learned from our mistakes in the past". Literary agents aren't necessary to publish a book. Brandon Sanderson famously sold his first book, Elantris, and then went agent hunting. Why? It wasn't because he wanted to give up 15% of the book's lifetime earning potential to some random guy in New York. For Sanderson, he wanted help navigating the tricky and confusing world of traditional publishing. He wanted someone who would help him understand the contract. He wanted the help that an agent provides. It's similar to real estate agents: They earn their money by providing a worthwhile service that will help ease the process of contractual interactions. That's their jobs. Literary agents are no different. That being said, a lot of people (and I include myself here) want and/or need the additional help of an agent before trying to tackle the Big Dream™. Guidance, advice, and an advocate who's passionate and excited about my writing? Hecks yes I'd like that in my corner. Sure, she's being paid to like my book--but only if she sells it. That's the thing about agents: If they don't sell your book, they don't make any money on it. Hence the reason they're selective. It's hard to put in hours of work doing edits, calming skittish writers, and generating contacts in the publishing industry who might be interested in the book, then failing to get any traction with it. An agent has to believe in a story in order to want to fight for that story, and the idea that I won't go into the fight alone is an encouraging one. So, though I don't have any, I'm a fan of the ideas of agents. I've queried a good dozen or so, over the years, with a lot of different projects. Nothing has ever come from it, though I did get some personalized feedback once (it helped me see one of the ways in which I write, but otherwise wasn't too helpful, since her recommended changes on the first couple of chapters fundamentally undid the themes I was building and the story I was telling). That's part of the game. It's hard. It's dispiriting. It's frustrating. I haven't queried in over a year, I think, because it's so emotionally taxing. But I don't think it's worthless. And that leads me back to where I started: I saw a useful thread on agenting Twitter (one of my main resources for understanding what's going on in the publishing world) in which the agent was talking about small minutiae about signing a contract. These were hints like, "If you're going to hire a lawyer to look over a contract, make sure that lawyer has experience in publishing rules and laws." That makes sense. I've heard a number of other agents recommend a similar thing, including an agent who said that if you aren't going to get an agent, you should definitely hire a lawyer to look over the legally binding contract that you're signing to when you receive an offer for publication. You don't want to make a costly mistake. So this was some useful information. Then I made the mistake of reading on after the thread was open. A man named Mark (the rest of his information is redacted because he sounds like a jerk and I don't want to feed the trolls) jumped in and said--in a thread written by an agent, who was dispensing her wisdom and experience for free over Twitter--that agents were becoming irrelevant because so many people can self-publish. I have thoughts and feelings about self-publishing that won't fit in here, but while the fact that people can self-publish doesn't necessarily mean that they will or that agents are irrelevant. No, they haven't always been around. Neither has self-publishing. Things change. I get that. But then Mark went on to add this, after someone called him on his statement by sharing an article she'd written about the success she'd gained by having an agent. Here is his tweet: I've been thinking about his response for a day or two. There's a savor of bitterness in his words. An earlier tweet made it clear that he believed that agents don't work for authors, as they're too scared to take a chance on new voices*. This and the entire aggressive, petulant tone of his tweets led me to believe that this was one angry, disillusioned man. And, with the recent, hilarious kerfuffle about #misandryinpublishing (the one thing that this whole debacle correctly highlights, as noted in the article, is that the vast majority of agents are women), it seems as though there is a lot of bitterness within the aspirant-writing community.
Again, I'm baffled by his bitterness. Yes, getting published is hard to do and will take a lot of effort. For some, it's not even the right path--self-publishing or vanity publishing or e-publishing or something else entirely might be what a person needs. The idea, however, that, because it didn't work for Mark, the only conclusion is that agents are "slowly becoming irrelevant" and that they ought to "sleep well" (which sounds vaguely threatening to me). Sounds like nonsense. What gets me the most though, is his phrase "Nothing will make me change my mind." Really? Nothing? I'm almost envious of such assurance. What process does he use to get to such an unshakable conclusion? Can we apply his process to other vexing questions? If I were an agent and saw this guy's Twitter feed--particularly where he goes after another agent--I wouldn't want to work with him. Not, "I wouldn't think his stuff was any good." He could be the next Faulkner. But I--and I'm guessing from what a lot of agents have written, many others--wouldn't want to deal with that kind of attitude or position. As a teacher, I don't have the luxury of selecting those with whom I work. Legally, the kids have to be in a classroom; mine serves as well as many others. There are some students that I don't want to/am glad I don't have to work with. I do when necessary, obviously--I try to teach everyone in my class, even those with apparently undiagnosed narcolepsy--but it's one of the difficult parts of my selected career. If I were an agent and had, by the nature of my job, the chance to choose someone to work with, why would I pick someone who reeks of bitterness and (probably) elderberries? It seems like a pessimistic self-fulfilling prophecy: "I hate agents because they never read my stuff; why won't agents read my stuff? They suck and I hate them and they'll never read what I wrote anyway…" All of this is a long way to say, don't be a jerk to people--online or off. Try to, I don't know, follow the Golden Rule or something? Why is that too much to ask? --- * This makes no sense. An agent eats because she sells books. Even established authors have a hard time getting a new book to sell. So an agent, by necessity, needs to find additional writers to work with. While she may be getting 15% royalties for all of the books she represented before, that isn't lucrative residual income. Fifteen percent isn't much when the royalties are already slim. Agents are constantly looking for new voices--which Mark would know if he did research (something that a lot of aspiring writers don't do when they start trying to find a publisher/agent). While I don't shy away from discussing something political here, this particular topic is trickier than some of the other things I've brought up. Part of its complexity is that it's centered around a private citizen in the public sphere, and since he isn't a public official, giving additional attention to him is largely the reason he's as polemic (to put it in the nicest terms possible) as he is. Added into that is the fact that I can't stomach any of the man's philosophies and view his "contributions" to the world as mostly harmful and revolting--which, again, only adds to him, as my antipathy for him is viewed as not only his purpose, but also his preference. Another impulse is that it's about book publishing, which is something that I aspire to be a part of, despite knowing that it is rife with all the problems of storied establishments, including gender biases, racial biases, and outdated and -moded economic policies. Nevertheless, there's one angle on the whole story that makes me frustrated, and it goes back to when Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos was first announced as having been purchased by Simon & Schuster. This article from The Atlantic sums up a lot of what I feel, with this quote being the core principle here: Yiannopoulos’s literary agent, Thomas Flannery Jr., made similar arguments in an op-ed for Publisher’s Weekly. “I’ve been continually shocked by the willingness of many in the publishing industry to stifle Milo’s opinions,” he wrote. “The right to speak freely, even if your opinions are unpopular, should be the bedrock of our industry.” But not giving someone a book deal isn’t suppressing their right to free speech—while publishing their work means elevating their voice above countless others. As Gay wrote in a statement when she pulled her book in January, “Milo has every right to say what he wants to say, however distasteful I and many others find it to be. He doesn’t have a right to have a book published by a major publisher, but he has, in some bizarre twist of fate, been afforded that privilege.” It's this fundamental misunderstanding of what the First Amendment is and how free speech works that really gets me. Flannery gets it completely wrong that the "publishing industry [is trying] to stifle Milo's opinions." That isn't what happened. Milo's opinions had--and continue to have--immense exposure and massive amounts of support (even though he advocates things like pedophilia, hunting obese people, and white supremacist/Neo-Nazi views). His time on Brietbart News gave him a gigantic platform off of which he built his own notoriety and said all of the horrendous, hateful things he's said. The fact that the government didn't shut him and the company for which he worked down? That's what the First Amendment is there for.
That's it. The interesting thing about the Bill of Rights is that it contains mostly negative rights--that is, areas in which the government is constrained from interfering. It agrees not to interfere with freedom of speech, religion, or press. There are a handful of positive rights (right to a lawyer, even if you can't afford it, for example), but most of the time, the Bill of Rights is a rule book for what the government can't do rather than what the people can. So, as far as Milo's--and those who enable, support, and adore him--argument, he has the right not to be stifled by the government. Nowhere in the Constitution am I compelled to listen to him, and nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the publishing industry has to give him a venue in which to share his ideas. Consider this: I have ideas that I want to share; I have books that I've written. Why am I still unpublished? The publishing industry is suppressing my free speech! They just don't like what I have to say and so they're trying to keep me from making money on the words I've written! I have a right to be heard! It sounds pretty stupid an argument, but it is the exact one that Yiannopoulos is employing here. Simon & Schuster likely didn't want to push the book, considering the backlash that many gave for Dangerous in the first place. I even wrote about how to consider financial support of one of The Big Five publishers in light of Yiannopoulos' book deal. But the idea that Yiannopoulos is somehow being censored or suppressed by the business decisions of Simon & Schuster is ludicrous. Not only does he have more avenues for spouting his filth than ever before in the history of mankind, but there's a deeper irony here. One of the things about alt-right, far-right, neo-con, and neo-Nazi philosophy is that, economically, they're far to the right. They're also authoritarian, but that's not the point here: One of the issues that far-right economics adheres to is the inviolability of the market and the idea of individual responsibility for one's success. That is, nothing should be given away (except tax breaks to the already wealthy), nothing should be provided by the government. Yet by having this far-right darling sue Simon & Schuster, the far-right movement is essentially appealing to the government to demand a service be given to someone who has clearly violated* his own terms of contract and failed to provide the company with what they requested. With the lawsuit now officially filed, the story of a man's dangerous speech being forced into the country's discourse is not going away. But, at least from where I sit, it's not going to go well for Milo. And that's good news. --- * The lawsuit against Simon & Schuster has given insight into the editorial process, which, to put it mildly, is not indicative of a good book. The editor has many more edits that Milo and his ghost writer needed to make, were the book to continue forward. It's clear that Simon & Schuster argues that Milo didn't/wasn't willing to make the requested edits, which violates the contract. No writer that I know of could have a catalogue of edits, refuse to do them, and then think she was justified in suing the publisher when the book deal was canceled. Yet, unless I'm missing something pretty important, that's exactly what happened with Yiannopoulos. |
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