- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
I am suitably drugged up at the moment. I ended going to my doctor's place yesterday and he supplied me with something he assured me would ease the pain. I can't really say what it is, mostly because I can't remember, not that its some kind of illegal substance or anything, trust me.
Anyways I was watching the Habs and Leafs game (lifetime Montreal fan speaking) and now that the Habs have successfully won once again I am even more pleased.
While I was watching the game I was speaking with a friend on my cell. I was bored so I forced her into a conversation for the entirety of the game. I believe it was during the second period when there was all that goal scoring that my friend asked out of the blue, "So are you ever worried about how hard it is to get a book published?"
At the time I didn't really have a response, mainly because my personal feelings on the matter are long-winded and I was already using up most of my monthly limits for my cell. I figured I'd just pass along the URL to this page and let her read it.
There is a big misconception I'd say, about the problems facing a lot of authors trying to get their writings published. There's a saying amongst many non-proffesional authors that everyone has a novel inside of them. That is most likely, one of the most misconstrued statement around these parts.
Curiously unsatisfied with the idea that being a successful novelist requires the ability to write books that a consistently large number of people are prepared to buy, jaded scribblers search instead for an explanation that will permit them to retreat with their pride and delusions intact.
Cynical of me? Yeah I guess, but it's the truth. How many unsuccessful writers will you hear say things like, "Oh the audience wasn't there for my book." I don't think you'll find too many authors who'll make the statement that people didn't buy their book because it was dull.
The thing is, publisher's and agents are just as human as other people. They are always looking for the 'Next Big Thing'. I assure you that they're sitting there imagining the day that a manuscript lands on their desk that is the next Harry Potter. Both of them. They like to sit behind a wall of professionalism, but truth is stranger than fiction, and its certainly true that they'll take risks to unload good money into bad books, just because they think it's going to be big. Quality not withstanding.
So no, there isn't really this luring behemoth standing in the backgrounds of the writing industry. You could probably say that the industry is too open these days. There's too much medicore crap lining the shelves these days.
Publishers burrow way too much money into bad ideas that look like they have a chance of succeeding in the market and in the process netting them a big pocket of change. This isn't a bad thing necessarily, but they do it so often, that when the big name novel finally does come by, it gets burried and clumped together with these mediocore titles and it doesn't get the exposure it deserves.
Successful novelists can typically say that their success was the product of a series of accidents.
Tom Clancy is a good example. How well do you think his earlier novels would have done if Ronald Reagen hadn't stepped off of Air Force One, flashed that winning smile and held up The Hunt for Red October and grandly declared it to be "a really good yarn"?
These are my own opinions on the industry itself, so don't take them too seriously, but I'd say I'm quite accurate in my proclamation.
So when I say that I don't want to turn in one of my original novels to a publisher until I'm certain it'll be a success, I don't mean just that it will meet the publisher's expectations, or whatever agent I can find, I mean that I want it to exceed everyones expectations, even my own. I don't want to be clumped together with other hopefuls, throwing out their hopeful shot. I wish for my own novel to be a success in its own league.