Be Thankful for the Gatekeepers

Here is a recurring nightmare. If you're an aspiring author and this doesn't give you cold shivers, you should take your own pulse. You may, in fact, be dead.

It’s happened. The phone-call you’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. Your book is being published! And not just one; you're offered an advance on two more. It’s more money than you ever imagined; apparently, there is much excitement about your manuscript, and expectations are high.

You tell your friends, your acquaintances, your neighbours, anyone who will listen. People around you get bored with your constant jabbering about your book, but you don’t care. You’ve reached the unattainable. You have arrived.

The launch comes. It’s a big deal, you've invited as many people as you could think of. Artwork from the book is draped about the hall, red wine is flowing, a pile of brand-new novels stands guard next to a chirping cash-register. As you sit and sign copy after copy, your face flushed from wine and the heat of the occasion, you reflect that life couldn’t possibly get any better than this.

The next day, you start checking the review pages on all the sites you can think of. You check them five times a day, in between writing book 2 in the series. Nothing. Why can’t people read faster than this? Finally, a review. Your fingers tremble as you click the link to read it. Not good. Whoever this person is, they didn’t really get your book at all. Their review cuts like a knife, but you shake your head and force yourself to get over it. It’s only one person’s viewpoint, after all.

The days pass, and you find yourself ringing a few friends who have the book, on the pretence of idle chit-chat or a discussion about an upcoming social event. They say nothing about the novel and, in the end, you come right out and ask. After a moment’s silence, they say “Yeah, it was really good. I really enjoyed it.” But it sounds forced, awkward, and they seem keen to get you off the phone.

More reviews, each as negative as the last. Words begin to make regular appearances – “trite”, “mediocre”, “unoriginal”. Who are these people with such a damning view? Did they read your book or just the back cover? You tell yourself not to worry, it's a bad patch. The positive reviews will come soon. But they don’t. Three stars out of five is the best you get, and that’s from someone who gives five to almost everything. There’s a tone of mockery and laughter about the reviews, and a constant refrain rings like a bell in your ears: “How on earth did this get published?”

Meetings with your publisher are less than encouraging. She reassures you that sometimes books take a while to get moving, and that many great novels started off this badly. You ask for specific examples, but she simply plays with her pen and purses her lips. As time passes, she is more open. Sales are worrying. Sales are very worrying. At this rate, it looks as though you won’t earn back even a tenth of your advance.

The crunch. A meeting is called with your publisher and a very stern-faced company CEO. The talk is direct and brief. The company will not be publishing the second or third book in the series. The title has not lived up to expectations. The market has made its view abundantly clear.

Now, you don’t mention the book to anybody. Your greatest hope is that they will forget. You’ve tried to publish again, a different genre altogether, without mentioning your previous publication history. But it’s always the same. “You’re the author of that book, aren’t you?”, and the conversation is over.

And, in those bitter moments, when you sit and stare at the unopened box of books on the floor of your study, your mind always comes back to one thing. Why did that publisher tell you it was good enough? Why did she tell you that you were ready? Why did she open the door to failure and humiliation rather than snapping it shut with a quick form-letter rejection? Even you know, now, that your book is utter rubbish. You've learned so much in the interim, you're certain you could write a best-seller. All you need is a chance, a chance that will never come, because you only get one.

And yours, my friend, is gone.

Musings.

I wrote this a little while ago on my personal blog. In response to the article by Sean Williams, which I posted yesterday, I thought it was appropriate to share it here. It's not, I hope, me feeling sorry for myself. It's more an expression of feeling, otherwise known as a good vent.

It's funny, being a nobody in this writing business. You grovel to authors to get them to read your stuff, then wait endlessly while your manuscript gathers dust on their shelves. You grab every opportunity to post comments on agent's blogs, no matter the subject, hoping they might somehow notice you amongst the throng. You write a blog that only two or three people read, trying desperately to come up with intelligent, witty and relevant posts in case some agent or publisher happens to pass by. You battle just to get half an hour of writing time, and often, when you do, you feel guilty thinking about what else you should be doing. Then, all too often, by the time you fire up the laptop, it's so late at night you're too tired to be productive, and you give up, instead of writing something that's not your best. And, worst of all, you just don't know. You don't know whether it will ever happen, because you don't know if you have, or ever will have, what it takes. Sure, a few people have said they like your book, but are they trying to make you happy? Would they say the same thing about anything that fell into their laps? You don't know, and you can't know. Only time will tell.

But still you do it. Still you battle away, because you love it, and it's in your veins, and you're going to keep plugging away and moving forward inch by inch until something finally gives. Most of all, you do it because of that nagging voice - the one that whispers incessantly in your ear, telling you that failure is not even worth comparing to the tragedy of not trying at all.

Something Tough To Chew On.

Sean Williams is an aussie author of fantasy and sci-fi. I saw him speak once at a friend's book launch, and I follow his blog pretty closely, but I've never actually read any of his books (they're on my list, well and truly).

Early this week, in response to the death of Charles Brown, Sean wrote a post about the best writing advice he had ever received, which happened to come from Charles. Ever since I read it, it's been rattling around in my head, so I thought I would reproduce it here. Thanks to Sean, and many thanks to Charles. Rest in Peace.

Original post can be found here.

The best advice I ever received was from a guy called Charles Brown. He edits a magazine called LOCUS, which all the world's SF& F writers read to find out what's happening in the field. He's a big deal, in other words, and he came to talk to a bunch of new writers who'd won prizes in something called the Writers of the Future Contest.

I was among them. This was over fifteen years ago now, when I'd already decided to try to be a writer, but hadn't written any novels yet, or made much money at all. I was just hammering away at it because there was nothing else I wanted to do badly enough. The thought of spending most of my life doing something I hated, like being a doctor or a lawyer, was just unbearable.

Anyway, Charles sat us down and congratulated us on our success. It was pretty cool, he said; we should be proud of getting this far because not many people do. Of every hundred people who want to write, only one goes on to do something about it, to actually try writing something.

If you take a hundred of those people who actually do something about it, whether it's write a few poems or the beginning of a novel, only one in that hundred actually finishes anything.

And if you take a hundred of those finishers, only one of them will actually sell their work professionally.

If you add up all the zeroes, that means that just one wannabe writer in a million will sell or win an award for their story, poem or novel. So sitting around that table of prize-winners really was something to be proud of.

But that wasn't the end of it. If you take a hundred people who have sold a something they wrote, how many of them are likely to ever make a career out of writing? That is, how many will take that one sale and turn it into a regular income on which they can support themselves indefinitely?

Just one.

Well, I looked around the table. There were around twenty of us in the room, and we were all high on that the thought that we were real writers now. All our stories were going to win prizes, and all our novels would be bestsellers.

It doesn't work like that, Charlie said. If the odds are one in a hundred, then the chances were that none of us in that room were going to get anywhere. Oh, we might sell a few more stories, here and there. Maybe a novel, if we were lucky. But earn enough to make a living from it? Unlikely.

It would be better, he said, if we gave up right now. Saved ourselves the years of hardship and heartbreak. Put all that wasted energy into a career that would actually make money, and spare our families and loved ones all that frustration and anger when we didn't ultimately get anywhere. How many zeroes are we up to now? For every one hundred million people who dream of being a writer, there's just one who reaps the rewards. What makes you think you're going to be that one?

I listened to him and thought, "He's making perfect sense. Everything he says is true. It makes me feel sick inside to admit it, but I am crazy for thinking I might get anywhere. I know the odds are stacked against me, and only either pride or stupidity--or both--has got me this far. The bubble is bound to pop eventually, as it will for ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-eight other wannabe writers. And one lucky one will go on, not knowing just how lucky they are. Curse them."

It took me the rest of Charles's speech to realise that, although he was absolutely right, it didn't change a thing. Not one thing. The odds were still awful; I was an idiot for even trying. But if I didn't love it enough to keep doing it anyway, then I would never get anywhere, no matter how much I tried. I would be that one in one hundred million if I had to sweat blood to do it. I would prove Charles Brown absolutely right by doing the exact opposite of what he told me to do.

And I did.