Another best-seller turned down 60 times by "professionals" who know the business and what sells and doesn't:
http://shine.yahoo.com/event/poweryourfuture/kathryn-stocketts-the-help-turned-down-60-times-before-becoming-a-best-seller-2523496/
And yet, for validation in the old traditional legacy model of publishing, some self-serving hacks continue to spout that writers are supposed to kowtow to these moronic gatekeepers, of whom it looks like about 1 in 61 know a good product when it bites them in the ass.
At my last Crime Bake mystery convention, author after author held up one of their best-sellers and told how many times the book had been rejected before getting to someone who recognized talent, whereupon it shot to the top of the charts. And yeah, many were in the 60's range of rejections.
Roughly 1 in 60 "pros" who can spot a good writer and a good product. In any other business, that would be abject failure.
Joe Konrath is right. Write something good, get it edited properly, self-publish if you have to, and do a ton of promoting. If it's good, the readers will come.
We don't need these bozos anymore to act as the gatekeepers of talent. Especially since so damn few of them can recognize it.
Showing posts with label First post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label First post. Show all posts
Friday, August 12, 2011
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Hello World- Seeking agent
This is me, behind the technological curve, finally starting a blog. I do enjoy ranting, so here we go. Hope you enjoy the ride.
My first posting concerns getting a literary agent to sell my novel. I've completed the first book of a mystery series, and writing pros who've seen it agree that it's good. It takes about as much time to get your writing distributed on a professional level as it does to write it. Lots of research on which agents respond to queries, what they look for, particular formatting for submissions. It's a tough field, not for the faint of heart. There are only about 400-500 people in the U.S. who make a living writing fiction. It takes a lot of persistence, luck, and talent to make a go of it.
So I'll let you know how it's going. Someday you'll get to read a copy of A Memory of Grief, and my other books. In the meantime, I'll try to keep you informed and entertained with a variety of tidbbits.
My first posting concerns getting a literary agent to sell my novel. I've completed the first book of a mystery series, and writing pros who've seen it agree that it's good. It takes about as much time to get your writing distributed on a professional level as it does to write it. Lots of research on which agents respond to queries, what they look for, particular formatting for submissions. It's a tough field, not for the faint of heart. There are only about 400-500 people in the U.S. who make a living writing fiction. It takes a lot of persistence, luck, and talent to make a go of it.
So I'll let you know how it's going. Someday you'll get to read a copy of A Memory of Grief, and my other books. In the meantime, I'll try to keep you informed and entertained with a variety of tidbbits.
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