When I started this series of posts I envisioned a series of short factual pieces that would travel in a straight line from point A to point B. As a mathematics teacher I can of course do that, but it’s not the way my mind works natively. As I read the comments that follow the posts, I see snippets of thoughts and questions that stimulate whole new formulations to explore. These diversions circle and arc from the straight-and-narrow, but somehow come back to the point at hand. To me good writing is about the journey, yet ends up simultaneously being the destination.
Yesterday I read a comment that gypsyman made on Part 2 of this series concerning the difference between writing and blogging. His comment provided the stimulation for this post. I like commentary when it has the effect of friends sitting around a fire sharing ideas and stimulating each other’s creative process. I find myself disappointed when there is no commentary, in small part due to ego, but mostly because I enjoy the sitting around the fire. I wish this fire could be a bigger part of internet life.
In Part 2, I explored my reasons for writing. I’m going to revisit that a bit and actually take you inside this writer. In Myth and Education I took you a bit inside the symbolic, mythological world. I live inside that world. It is a world of energy swirls and flows, of raucous crows alighting in the trees to awaken me to something I need to know, of numinous plants and trees, and of the mysteries inherent in a piece of wood as my plane passes over it. When I write at the deep level a mysterious force rises up and begins to flow like a river through me. Some people might call it a muse, but the gods, goddesses and muses are just images of the energies at play in the deep mind. In the midst of this flow, this process, the mind feels whole and complete, enlightened and aware even as it struggles to masterfully describe the indescribable. So this can be described as flowing water or a stream of electrical current.
Like an electrical current this energy flows from pole to pole, from a place deep within to another receptive pole. For me, that other pole has existed in my imagination; a reader somewhere who understands what I’m saying and revels in the way I say it. After finding that person in reality the flow of energy grew and I imagined the faces of others. In the course of this process I sent off more book proposals to publishers and agents. Their negative response or lack of response was like a door slammed shut on the energy flow. It was a short circuit in the current, a sudden blockage or dam in the river that caused it to back up and flood. It seemed that I wouldn’t ever be able to reach those other readers, the other pole disappeared and I lost my power to imagine the faces. My mind would seize and I became fearful of again raising the mysterious force and risking the pain. Despite the fear, I constantly fought to reclaim my power to imagine the other pole and to allow the energy to flow once more.
Article comments
1 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
John, i just came across this series, an i'm lookin forward to catchin up.
That quote you have from the distributor is incredibly disturbing. I'm currently writin somethin i hope'll have merit, but the notion that, as you say, unless it's somethin with a clearly defined audience then it ain't more than a whisper midst hell-fire, well, that's enough to make a fella uncomfortable.
i remember an english teacher tellin me the average shelf-life for a paperback was a year. that's also incredibly worryin.
regardless, i for one hope this series continues.
2 - Victor Lana
John, this series continues to be a pleasure. I too am mortified by the responses I sometimes get. My last book, a collection of 9/11 short stories, was evaluated by one publisher this way:
"The novel loses its way by chapter three and..."
Obviously, didn't even read the cover. So we are up against it, but articles like yours certainly keep the hope alive.
3 - Mark Saleski
hooboy! great stuff again.
dang though, that cynicism (perhaps very appropriate) tends to lay over the publishing industry like an old wool blanket with tons 'o mold in it.
weirdly, i still tend to find tons of great books out there. but still, i know that i'm not seeing what goes on 'behind the scenes'.
cary on john, we're all really enjoying this stuff.
4 - John Spivey
I appreciate all the commentary. I don't think the industry is going to wake up some day and make a drastic change. Someone just has to do it. I'm cynical about the process, but I don't want cynicism to be the end of the discusssion. The same in politics or life. Is it possible we could find a collective brilliance?
5 - T
I just want to say that the reality of publishing is this--you need to be a hit before anyone will pay attention--so I think authors have to do what indie bands are doing. Get the best book together that you can, with the money you have, and press as many palms as you can...it's all about traffic. I day we should do away with the idea of agents and publishers--most of us are wasting our time..Use the internet to establish a following-give books away for review to whoever wants them and sell, sell, sell. Yes, it sucks but we have to be our own marketing dept, publishing dept, and agent.
6 - John Spivey
T-
Though I admire what indie bands are doing, books are a different kettle of fish. I can't go play clubs and build a fan base. Bookstore appearances when you are unknown bring in a handful of people. I have to believe that somewhere in the internet lies a solution. We have to create it, but we can't bog it down with shitty work and random spewings. We have to be able to learn to sort things out for ourselves without a self-selected elite to do it for us.
js
7 - Marilyn Barnicke Belleghem
Selling books is hard work. I originally thought writing a book was a major event. I still do. I was so excited to have my first books in my hands. Seeing them on a library shelf and in local book stores was also a dream come true. Creating a market and actually getting in the money after giving away books for reviews, as prizes, entering contests and making media appearances is a whole new career.
I too have had people comment on my book who obviously never really looked at it never mind reading it. My books are non-fiction on personal growth through travel and I’ve had people say “What an interesting idea for a novel.” One review on line was a personal attack on me as a person and not much about what the book is about. I’m learning and getting a thicker skin.
I’m pleased to hear what others have to say here and share stories. Thanks John.
8 - gypsyman
The closer I get to sending anything to a publisher the less I like the idea. I keep finding excueses not to be finished revising the first three chapters they want as samples, or whatever excuse works.
I've been lucky to receive lots of advice, and positive encouragement from people who have succesfully negotiated the labarynth of publishing, and the common element is, get published outside the United States first.
Sicne that's where I am , I had already pretty much accepted that, anyway there's something about being published in England that has a certain cachet to it. It appeals to the literary snob in me I guess.
Once published you can then perhaps seek to find an American agent to handle the rights in the States. You'll be a published author, with a track record which will make you attractive to them.
Very few publishers, in the States, seem to be taking submissions directly from writers anymore, while very few agents take on writers who aren't published.
Distribution without a publisher paying for things costs more money than a writer is bound to have at hand. Even publish on demand places end up charging so much per book that you have to price a papperback at far more than what's charged in the stores.
Unlike handmade crafts, handmade books don't have the ability to attract a higher price. People are liable to say, well its only a book like this book why should I pay extra for it just because you can't get a publisher?
There it is the stigma of not having a publisher, not good enough is everyone's first thought, and boy does that cut into your sales.
So you can't afford to do a 10,000 copy printing to flood the stores so that everyone sees your name, you can't get it reviewed by the major press because you don't have a publisher, so your pretty much stuck standing on a street corner yelling "buy my book"
Depressing, but such is the lot of the independant currently. Me I don't have a solution to the problem, so I'm going to go the standard route of trying to find someone out there who will pay me to publish it for me.
You know when you think about it that way, that's a pretty good deal, they pay you to publish and publicize what you've written. I think that's worth the effort of contacting publisher after publisher.
I'll let you know how I feel about that after a few months, I might be singing a different tune when the rejection letters start piling up.
gypsyman
9 - John Spivey
gypsyman-
I hope my upcoming posts can deal with some of that.
js
10 - Elvira Black
I think the novelist's lot has always been a difficult one. One of my favorite minor Victorian novelists, George Gissing, described the vagaries of the publishing industry and its voracious commercialization in New Grub Street, which was written in the latter years of the 19th century. Though he had a classical education, Gissing struggled between the desire to create high art and the demands of the marketplace. Back then in England the "triple decker" novel was the demanded form, where writers were paid to produce serialized tomes and paid by the word for their bloated prose. Gissing himself led a miserable, impoverished, even starving existence as a writer in England for a good portion of his life.
The market today is just as commercialized--more so--and there are of course many more writers than publishers to represent them. Plus, I don't think the general public reads as avidly and broadly as they used to. Although the New Yorker still publishes poetry, it is one of the scant few, if not the only, major magazine that still does. And novels, likewise, seem to be a particularly tough sell, because I believe their popularity is also waning. Non-fiction or even memoirs seem like a more potentially lucrative route, but of course for a novelist these vehicles may just not do--though perhaps they can be a stepping stone in some cases to establish enough of a following to achieve success as a novelist later down the line (as with, say, Susan Sontag).
The only choice for writers serious about getting published is, to my mind, a very thick skin and endless perserverance in a fiercely competitive market. Perhaps some networking and schmoozing and cultivating connections at, say, writer's conferences may be in order as well--I don't know. If one wants to try to find an agent and publisher, this is a very tough route; if one wants to self-publish, one has little choice but to try and market like a madman. It may seem undignified, but that seems like the only way to go.
Perhaps as you say, John, the internet will provide some sort of new alternative for writers struggling for an audience and recognition. I think a site like Blogcritics, which has so many visitors (including, I woud imagine, various editors and publishers), may signal an emerging trend and may give an additional source of hope and opportunity to today's struggling novelists trying to find their readers.