I’ve recently reopened the debate in my mind about attempting to get trade published. Of course the first step is getting me to write mainstream (boring!) and the second step of that is actually attempting to get an agent, which in itself is a feat nothing short of a miracle.
Because of this internal debate, I’ve come to ask myself why authors feel the need in this day and age where we have so much control over our own work – with ebooks, self publishing, pod, etc – to be trade published. I want it, and I know of other authors in my circle that want it to. It seems like a Holy Grail, a dream of most authors, to be trade published. Why?
Is it a need to belong? To be trade published is to supposedly join the elite, a clique of writers whose books have leapt over hurdle after hurdle and made it to the finish line. We all know that its a slippery slope once you’re up there, your book published and out there in the world. With so many open forums where people can diss your work, including the formidable Amazon, its easy to fall off the pedestal.
Do I want to be a part of such a clique? I don’t know. I’ve never liked the clique mentality. You’re only as good as your last book and look at the way authors like L K Hamilton and Anne Rice have gone. People are slating them so badly that they’ve gotten twitchy and felt the need to respond. There’s a grand mistake right there. Give the public more ammunition against you by getting uppity because they had the audacity to call you on your faux par.
When I weigh up the pros and cons, the math doesn’t add up in my eyes. Only 1% of books submitted to agents and publishers, actually it’s probably less than that in reality, find themselves a home at a trade publisher – I’m talking about the bigger boys here, not the small presses. That 1% are apparently amazing, leaping over those hurdles like sheep jumping fences in your dreams. Of course, for most authors, being published is just a dream and will always remain a dream. For us 99%, our books are the sheep, only able to jump the required hurdles in our wildest dreams. Heck, a normal sheep couldn’t jump a fence!
I know this sounds negative, but I’m just aware that the odds are stacked against most authors. My dear friend Maria is always saying that reviews are just one persons opinion. If publishing houses have 1 person that loves a book, they probably make another bunch of people read it before they make it an offer. Surely those people have been influenced by that 1 person in a way? Like water-cooler talk. “this books great, you’ve got to read it and back me up here” or a more subtle influence of not wanting to disappoint your friend by saying it was crap.
Of course, we all know that when it comes to getting published, it’s not the person you impress with your skill as a writer, it’s the commercial value of your story. It’s never really about how good it is, just whether a publisher thinks it’ll sell. To make a book saleable, you have to stay near to mainstream and what’s in fashion, or what’s about to become fashionable.
Speaking from the heart here, I don’t think I write commercially, and I don’t particularly care. When you see the sales in the world of ebooks, and your story is amongst the higher end of the scale, you realise that a book doesn’t have to be mainstream to sell. You can write the story your heart wants to write, and you’ll probably get the same split of people loving it or hating it that you would get with a mainstream story.
I’m losing the plot here I think. Of course it’s my dream to be trade published, but sacrificing writing the stories I want to write in order to achieve that? Well, that feels like something akin to selling my soul right about now, and that’s something I’ll never do. Self confidence hasn’t been my strong suit for a while now, but I know when I’m faced with insurmountable odds and when to back down from a challenge, and this is me…backing down. Maybe when I’ve finished writing the stories I want to write, then I’ll get something published.
I’m with Dean Koontz on this one. He said once about his writing that “I don’t measure success by the number of copies sold but by the delight I get from the process and the finished work.”
Amen to that!
