I read the following fascinating story in Brian Marggraf’s excellent blog. Apparently, a few years ago, Samuel Moffie submitted his book, The Perfect Martini to 100 literary agents. The Perfect Martini, in fact, didn’t exist. What Moffie had done, was to submit 90% of the first twenty pages of Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions, disguised as The Perfect Martini. The success rate turned out to be somewhat less than you might expect. In fact, only one agent responded positively, but that’s because they recognized the original author… Which means that 99 agents not only failed to recognize, but actually declined to publish a seminal work of art.
I thought of this as I was reading the fascinating comments in Mike Shatzkins’s Files. Mike makes some interesting points in an effort to debunk Hugh Howey’s Author Earnings report. His basic argument is that Howey has insufficient information, with which I partly agree. He then questions Howey’s findings, based on that fact. This I’m less convinced about; I found Howey’s methodology to be sound and his data as accurate as realistically possible.
Finally, he questions Howey’s main point, that self-published authors are better off. This is when it hit me. Not all self-published authors will be better off, just like not all traditionally published authors will succeed. But Mike’s arguments miss the main problem with today’s publishing: In a world where 99 agents passed on Kurt Vonnegut, what chance do the rest of us have? The choice is not between Indie or trad publishing. It’s between being published and not being published.
Indie or trad? What’s your take?
A friend of mine passed this on to me. Thanks for writing about it. Your conclusion is spot on. I cannot tell you how many people I meet who are taken in by the snake-oil poison salespeople about getting their novels published in unconventional form. For the record-Kurt Vonnegut LIVES!
Thank you so much and welcome! Sorry for the late response; your comment ended up in the spam folder for some reason. And yes, Vonnegut rules! 😀
I’m not very surprised by that. For what it’s worth, I think the way you go as an author just depends on what you’re most comfortable with. I was reading a blog recently, called how to annoy an agent in which, as usual, they stressed the point that the polite thing to do is to research them and approach them one at a time.
Personally, I absolutely get that attitude, but having done that, and having taken a WHOLE YEAR to get polite nos from five of them I decided I’d self publish. I also write humorous science fiction fantasy which is not exactly the favourite Genre of the only people who are able to get into publishing here in the UK; Oxbridge graduates who like literary fiction. It’s a hard sell, too. Very commercial when it works… when…
With regard to marketing and stuff, I’m with the Neil Gaman quote. In the real world, I don’t bump into authors that often so it’s lovely to be able to chat with them on line. I write a blog because I quite like doing that sort of thing anyway and I tweet things that interest me. I find twitter impossible to follow but I have quite a lot of conversations when I put stuff on there.
Sorry bit of a rambly reply… I have flu too.
Cheers
MTM
First of all, get well soon! 🙂
I’m genuinely upset by the implied disrespect in attitudes like that. The other day I happened across a call for short sci-fi stories submissions, by an online mag. I loved the idea, so I checked it out. Turns out that they offer no money, just “exposure”, and demand that all material has not been published before – and that it won’t be submitted anywhere until you’ve heard back from them. Which, according to the website, could take up to six months.
In the age of self-publishing, it enrages me that people might fall for “opportunities” like that. To quote the Passive Guy, “it’s time authors grew a pair”.
Yeh. I hear you. That’s why I decided it wasn’t for me. In some ways it’d be lovely to have the endorsement of being trad published, to be able to speak to book sellers and find them interested rather than wary.
Also, trad publishers are looking for something that will make a big margin. Years ago, I worked for a bus company. It was bought by a big transport group. Suddenly all our routes that were making 5 or 10% profit were making a loss for them because, due to their being a larger company their routes had to make 30% to break even. I imagine when you end up with a handful of corporate behemoths that is a universal trend, ergo, publishing is losing its edge and its adventure.
Interestingly, in the bus and coach industry, a lot of the routes were taken off and re-registered by other smaller companies who are now running them again at a profit. Again, it looks like something similar is happening in publishing with all the small presses.
Cheers
MTM
Not being published either way and only a blogger, I can’t really say. However, I can say I am appalled that 99% of the publishers didn’t recognize this work. I guess in a world where success means grinding out the same character in formulaic adventures, self serving self help books, and cooking books with whatever is “trending now”, one has to be particular in what one chooses to read – just like making choices in anything else. I don’t watch “reality” TV anymore than I read that sort of book, for example. Or maybe, I am too particular in this day and age. I know I enjoy blogging. I’m not the best writer around and I don’t have a ton of followers, but the folks who follow like what I do and over the years, I’ve had good conversations with them, via the comment area. I hadn’t heard from one of my followers (I follow her blog) for a couple of weeks and became concerned as there was a horrific mudslide in her area. She is one of the few whose personal email I have and who has mine. I emailed her last night and was pleased to receive back that she was fine but had had the flu. To me, that is what is about – not just pumping out moneymakers, but connecting and making a difference in someone’s life.
I couldn’t agree more, thanks for sharing your thoughts! Neil Gaiman says it best:
“I’m not sure if any [of what I do online] is networking. I mean, if it is, I never did it to Network. I did it because it was fun, and because writing can be a very lonely profession. It’s fun to have people to talk to, fun to have people who talk to you, and great to have people who will answer your questions (even if they’re wrong).”
Exactly. I don’t really network but I do connect. It’s fun, surprises abound, and my world expands. Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors so I am glad to read your quote from him. Prime example of surprise!