In case you didn't know the real scoop about WRITING, people, here's what an anonymous commenter (called D. Kollar) has to tell you today on a post from December about the business you're in:"I met with Mr. [Jeff] Kleinman a week ago at a writer's conference in Indiana to pitch my novel. He told me the idea was good but the book was not ready to be published. Although, this was a rejection, I valued his advice and after he told me what to do, I agreed and found the information helpful.
I think writers fail to realize this is a business, plain and simple. Agents may like many of the books they look at, but they only have time to represent the ones they love. I don't like form letters, but they are a necessary evil if an agent receives hundreds of query letters a month. Because really, when would they have the time to represent the authors they do have and make the money necessary to live if they spent time writing individual letters and going into depth about why they won't accept your manuscript.
It really comes down to this: if the idea and the writing don't absolutely wow the agent, they will not accept it. So you fix the problem, continue to learn, send a query letter to another agent, or you give up. But nobody has ever said that getting a book published is easy. Otherwise, everyone would have a story to sell. This career is only for those who don't give up.
D. Kollar"
Thanks for news flash about nothing we didn't already know, buddy.
4 comments:
Hey now, cut the dude some slack. He said he was in Indiana when he had that meeting. I'm from Indiana. It's like the 1950s there.
amazing..why is it that Nicholas Sparks said it was easy for him to get published. The first query he sent out for the "The Notebook" he received representation and then 2 days later a publisher bought the novel for 7 figures. What' up with that? Is it just fate...??? maybe we are all trying so hard for nothing. Maybe it's not in our plan...if that can be discovered in 2 days. wtf is wrong with me?
Yeah sure it's not a news flash, but how many people actually take it on board? None of us think it applies to us but it does apply to at least some of us; we all think we can write well but surprise surprise not everyone can (in the same way that perhaps we all think we're well liked but news flash not everyone we meet likes us).
There is nothing new to say about writing: some people can, some people can't, some people have a feeling for the kinds of imaginative worlds that will resonate with others, some people don't.
So no, D. Kollar isn't telling us anything new but none of the writers' complaints about the publishing industry we come across are new either.
I like what Jacob Appel wrote somewhere on this blog... he's submitted a billion stories and had 82 published. Very few people stick with it. How boring but that's it peoples.
Question: since you're all trying so hard to get published, how many stories are you actually writing? Are you writing every day or just when the mood strikes you (once a month, once a year)? I don't mean to sound flippant, and obviously, Writer, you are producing work and getting published, but what about everyone else out there? Are you actually writing or just spending time writing about not getting published? What's your focus?
i'm eating chips and writing comments before i go to bed and have dreams about stories i won't write tomorrow.
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