I've been doing this for 26 years full-time. I've nailed 250K advances and far more smaller advances, sold 1.5 million editions, with some titles selling hundreds of thousands of copies, and yet the publisher, for some stupid reason would find a reason for me to move on. I started my own imprint for publishing titles no mainstream publisher would ever touch for one reason or another and I've seen writers, editors, publishers, and agents come and go. I even had the same agent as Jeff Lindsay and his wife (who is Ernest Hemingway's niece) in Manhattan (he rejected Dexter). I've been on top of the world and I've been in the basement and I've lost the wives and hit all the bestseller lists (the ones that count) and won the awards and I've travelled the world and still live a life most would dream of. But for the life of me I will never understand the lack of logic, lack of loyalty, and most of all, the lack of common sense that stains this industry. It boggles the mind. The best you can hope for is to write what you love and get it out there one way or another, and fuck 'em if the mainstream doesn't like it. Do what works for you and most of all, survive.
This makes me scoff at advice from former tradpub editors like Alissa Matesic to "do the work" and "never touch AI," when in reality agents are mostly looking to check boxes. They are not looking for the people who "did the work." Half probably don't even know what "the work" looks like. So if you're only pursuing tradpub, honestly, why would you follow that advice? Takes the wind out of the sails, doesn't it?
Now, me--I can't *not* do the work. I don't even know how much I can change my own ideas to fit broad commercial appeal, micro-genres or hot keywords. So it's indie all the way, baby.
I had a discussion with some writer friends recently about using AI. One friend is actively using it to help him write his first novel that is planning to query. And because of the industry he works in, I have no doubt he will be able to get someone to look at it. Anyway, we had a friendly disagreement over it. He warned that writers not using AI are going to get left behind. And I said, so be it. I simply want to do the writing. It's hard, and I fail to get it done sometimes, but instructing AI to do a thing I feel compelled to do is never going to satisfy that compulsion.
Yeah, I think some of these tradpub-type influencers are high on their own supply. I in no way endorse deceptive tactics, it's just, how can you not expect people to seize everything they think will be an advantage in such a hyper-competitive market? They're just going to follow all the rules on your agent website because tradpub runs on honor and integrity and *hard work?* gtfo.
They are looking for people who will write and then do the agent’s and the publisher’s job too. They suck. Social media sucks because it destroys a piece of what makes you want to write.
I've got a copy of Knut Hamsen's Hunger permanently sitting above my desk. In that one, the protagonist is literally starving to death while writing a newspaper article for the money he needs to feed himself.
I think about that and how WEAK so many writers I know are. The "damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead", kiss my black ass (as Tia Ja'nae says here), etc. attitude should be the only attitude writers have. But it was sold to a lot of people as this respectable, viable life path if you get good grades in school. A thing you can pull off with the right connections and cutesie little cosmopolitan games.
Nah, man! It's a punk-ass move to write really original books. Actual literature. If it's really good stuff, you're challenging orthodoxy and bureaucracy that'll get in the way. 99% of the writers I know sound like they've come up in some soft times--the times are shit now, leave that delusion behind. You have a lot more in common with Hamsen than that vanilla scented trust fund BookTok lady you follow.
I just don't think our times are that special or interesting. One shouldn't be getting too in the weeds about the cultural climate or the industry until they've written like 10 brilliant unpublished manuscripts and is chasing publication. Just do it, punk ass!
Honestly, I think that started with the complete destruction of magazine reading. When Asa Barber was editor of Playboy, there was more exposure to authors (think how much Hunter S. Thompson or Alex Haley gained being a writer for them). Now, magazine subscription is dead and barely buried.
I'm a magazine writer/editor and magazines are a key interface between the public and longform writing/writers--especially new and rising talents. As the traditional magazine business model has gone through hell over the last 15 years or so and the digital world hasn't stepped up with a cohesive alternative, the public has become estranged from the writer. By writer, I mean a single, breathing human who makes a living from selling his or her longform. In the crippling (not complete death, but close) of American magazines, this entire essential conduit has been closed off between the writer and public.
Writers need to be connected to NORMIES, the layperson taking the bus to work, in order to actually thrive selling their work the real way. But without connectors like magazines, the whole game becomes about playing the bureaucracies for library distribution deals, weird and mysterious activist monies, kooky advances with fuzzy maths, cliquey New York City politics, etc. A class/education/personal connections split worsens as cocktail party and institution snobs become the arbiters of success, not those bus riding normies who would be voting for good stuff with their wallets in a healthy system.
The magazine was to the longform writer what the midsized comedy club stage is to comedians. If there was no comedy club stage, you'd have a huge gulf between really pitiful characters doing sets under overpasses to bums and the celeb brands that are more of a hyper managed corporation that makes money like show business. That's what writers look like right now imo. Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential started as popular ESSAYS in The New Yorker for crying out loud. That's how it's supposed to be and was until 10 - 15 years ago. We're not going to get edgy, organically popular line cook misadventures and memoirs like that anymore in the current setup.
But I'm not a doomer, culture is dynamic. There's a low key resurgence of magazines and Substack is the long awaited social media for longform I think. Also the self-publishing road, while no promised land, is viable to some. There's good stuff starting to happen.
Magazines shot themselves on the foot when they initially refused to acclimate to online, and then when they did went generic and free with content. There was zero excuse for that. That, unfortunately created a bipolar business model. Magazines like Rolling Stone abandoned journalism and now is pay to play. Give them 200 and they will put you in the mag online. Nobody is reading them, yet it spawned bullshit like 50 cents' online mag, etc.
The digital world has had plenty of alternatives. Writers can always get together and make their own magazine. I've tried to get writers I know and trust their work to do that. Problem is, WRITERS TODAY ARE LAZY FOR THE MOST PART. They don't want any skin in the game and the responsibility of running things for themselves. They want others to do it and then jump in and get an accolade once the heavy lifting has occurred. They are willing to give their stories up for free or for chump change rates to say Ellery Queen but then won't invest in themselves and build their own marketplace, which is sorely needed. And contrary to popular opinion, it cost damn near nothing now to get a web domain and build a site. Most of these "magazines" are still using blogspot domains! Truly a sign of unprofessionalism.
Writers are only cut off from the public because the public has taken a step back and writers haven't gotten off their asses creatively to bring the people what they WANT. Writers know big time pubs like The Atlantic are ignoring great writers with their laundry list of censorshipisms, but they would rather suck up and kiss their ass than make something that blows them out the water. See the previous paragraph.
As far as Substack, it's going to be a echo chamber like BlueSky, stuck with writers writing for other writers. Eventually it will be like Twitter, fractured but whole, with a few at the top getting subscriptions and the rest writing for free, which is what's already happening. A following here, there, or anywhere will never guarantee support of one's work outside the space, as people are creatures of habit.
I'm a pessimist. I don't see good stuff happening. I see stagnancy.
Totally, I'm with ya! Writers are generally pretty damn lazy and bad at grasping concepts that you outline about marketplaces and whatnot. They are naturally sort of vain, vaguely shamanic, often unambitious and antisocial weirdos. Bless their hearts.
Maybe our big tone difference is that I see what you're lamenting as an opportunity. The stagnation, mediocrity, chaos, etc. is great news for a new generation with an entrepreneurial spirit. Even the whole "men don't read fiction anymore" dynamic should make a certain person's lips smack... MILLIONS of people who used to read could be activated to read again with books they like, marketing for them, etc. All one would have to do is have some resources and have the guts to flip off the dogmas of the sickly industry. Ideologically, it's great because it'll help literature. But the business case is awesome too--real deal profits.
Necessity is what drives change. That the system blows in every way right now makes it vulnerable. More and more folks, including writers, are hip to this. The future belongs to the challengers of this crappy era, not the incumbents imo.
Eh, the opportunity is there but the writers who can pull it off are not. Hence why there's so much wasted energy into 1,001 anthologies every year that literally no one asked for nor is reading without begging family/friends/fellow writers to buy.
There are plenty of people, men included, that want the type of fiction that say I write for example, but they don't want to pay the inflation to read it. I can't go down on the price of my novel at this point - pussy grabber racism is expensive and with the tariffs the book is damn near 3x more from shipping alone. Thanks to Amazon people have become complacent with cheap books, including the authors who have taken a strong attitude they can't possibly make any money selling a book so they aren't even trying to make it profitable (and that goes with them not understanding the business, a point I'll be writing about soon).
Necessity in analog times drives change. That does not apply in digital times, because if it did we would be in the golden era of DIY/Indie books and dominating and we are not. This is why on my next releases I'm throwing out live five novels together and letting them sit up there. No book cover reveal, no ARCs (which thanks to the politics of that I refuse to do after my first novel), and no release date. That's going to be the future of a lot of writers, they just don't know that.
In America specifically, writing is becoming a dying art, like playing an instrument. The writers don't love their work enough to defend it and sue the shit out of Zuckerberg for stealing it for AI let alone pricing it accordingly. The entire playing ground just stinks to high hell. For every one like me you have 10,000 just waiting on their "big break" or feel like they should go along to get along because it may turn into something and it normally doesn't.
I don’t know when everybody got so damn sensitive. What’s happening now is that the snowflakes are destroying contemporary literature and classic literature. It’s like they mad the great Elmore Leonard didn’t refuse to write Rum Punch because Jackie Brown was Black and he didn’t “feel it was his story to tell”. Just look at what happened to Ian Fleming’s books. Disgraceful.
Respectable? I have never met an actual writer who was not a degenerate, a criminal of some sort, fucking crazy, or just wild and not able to be domesticated. Think PKD. Think Henry Miller. Writers are not normal people. Who the fuck writes 400,000 words about a whole hidden society on Mars and Nazis on the Moon and does probably just as much work to work out the reproduction rates of populations, researches obscure too secret tech and military secrets just for the FUN of it. And not even make money at it?
Me. That’s who. And you. If you’re a writer. Except you might be all about the hypothetical society of Lemurs living in the Amazon. And mechanical predators in the oceans of Europa.
You've clearly never been to a standard writers conference or book fair my fired up friend! You will find mimosa-brunch vibes and very LinkedIn friendly personalities dominate with a surreally oppressive power. Nurse Rachet won, McMurphy is dead.
I've been thinking about many of the issues you've raised. But you nailed it with the lipstick lesbian trust fund girls. Many of whom are aspiring authors themselves, which makes what's already a silo even darker. I wasn't certain you'd referred to that when you mentioned 'competing.' With the new administration, some of these ills with regards to wokewokewoke will be corrected, at least at the grant and fellowship level and maybe this will have a ripple effect. I wonder how long (or if) we'll ever see it in publishing. Since many small presses are dependent on government grants, things might get worse before better.
I sent out 50 queries to well-researched literary agents. I did not receive any feedback other than "not a good fit," "I didn't connect to the sample material" type form letters. Versions and excerpts of the same material has been published in respective literary journals, so I'm pretty sure it's not a question of quality or writing ability. I'm thinking that my main character is a cantankerous, middle-aged, cisgender white woman. Self-publishing is looking more and more attractive as time goes on. Kiss my black ass.
Here’s a little story about how its not going to get better.
Did you know before 1990, the National Endowment of the Arts had like a 500 million dollar kitty, split equally between anybody that applied for it across the entire scope of the arts (so we’re talking the entire complex of Fine Arts here, which in 1988 was a hell of a lot of money if say only 10000 people applied).
A Black gay filmmaker named Marlon Riggs applied for the grant to finance his second film “Tongues Untied”. The film was a living Eulogy, filled with nude black gay men who, like the filmmaker, had AIDS and wanted to deliver their own verbal performance piece styled eulogies and let the world see how they essentially were being neglected and left to die for being “like that”.
When it premiered on PBS nationwide in 1991, some stations around the country wouldn’t run it. It became so politicized that presidential candidate Pat Buchanan literally forced the Republicans to take a tough on Black Gay filmmakers stance and used it to slut shame George HW Bush every chance he got in the weirdest culture war the country had seen in 30 years.
This was part of the attack on Black artists, which at the same time you had the creation of the PMRC on the horizon as well. Condemned as “pornographic” by right-wing pundits who distorted the film’s content, “Tongues Untied” was debated in the halls of Congress as the movie became the centerpiece of how the National Endowments of the Arts (NEA) distributes its funding and a significant defunding of that kitty, which shrank down to something like 25 million across all of the arts.
More confirmation of the truth and some great points. Although "Step up or step off" in person might end up very badly in today's society. I may or may not have the benefit of lots of abandoned mine shafts or hollers to conclude such an encounter if it came to that, but the most efficient method I still endorse first is "cast ignore" with the ban/block/mute. It's the internet version of the same thing.
Apathy and silence does so much to drive the Cluster B Cancel Pigs berserk better than letting them get the negative attention they've been craving from mommy and daddy but decided you're an excellent proxy. Give that final dagger stick by informing them they're going on ignore and subverting their rage under your own power by "granting them permission" to have the last word as an extra F you on the way out. Nothing sucks their fun out of the upcoming psychotic spurg by pre-emptively assuming their agency. A little passive aggressive shot to concentrate that radioactive salt.
I love people that see the evolution of how we got here. It fascinates me and it’s so important to hold on to as the industry continues to shift and change. Asking why is exactly what everyone should be doing!!
Pretty much what I been doing for 30 years and i have some 20+ books out there but I am terrible at self promotion. I know because the odd time I do mention something about a book of mine that gets picked up I tend to get loyal readers after that and the books have all got high star ratings from actual readers, but it’s getting the masses to know you exist that’s difficult.
All of this. I have largely STFU, and just do the work. I do NOT have time for the Social drama, even on stuff like Discord. I DGAF what your politics/religion/personal beleifs are. Like Heinlein said, One man's beliefs are another man's belly laugh.
friend, I need to follow your example. The further into this I get, the more I'm seeing that gatekeeping is alive and well even in our small indie circles and I'm gettin' real tired of the high school drama.
I want to find good solid friends and am learning to leave the rest behind!
Smacking them back until they learn. For instance, my mentions on Twitter have been pretty quiet. Why? They know I won’t apologize. They know they can’t get me fired. They know my reputation does not rely on their favor. And they know I know it.
Being loud has brought them power in the past. Be louder. If they threaten your livelihood, attack their ego. “You think you can ruin my career? Well here’s your ‘accountability post’ saying you earn $50k a year as a lit agent. Awfully big mouth for someone making less than a steakhouse waitress.”
Never take sass from these losers. They only have standing if you give it to them
Do they really learn? I remember debating these same types of asshats online over politics for a decade. No one ever learned. They're not there to have honest discussion. They're mostly there to try and exercise power they lack in real life, and piss in other people's corn flakes because they find it fun. You can "fisk" them, turn their arguments inside out, mock the hell out of them, meme them into oblivion and they just keep coming back with a "Harder daddy" attitude because that's the whole point. Their narcissism/main character syndrome mental disorders are getting their itches scratched like a bear rubbing it's back against the corner of your house hoping you'll bribe them away with control over your life or society tossing them a dumpster full of treats to go away.
I mean if you're being entertained by beating them like a rented mule, all the more power to you. I finally got exhausted when I realized it was just fodder for gossip and trainwreck watchers. In many ways two Mark Twain quotes fit the situation perfectly.
"Never argue with a fool. He'll only drag you down to his level and beat you with experience."
and
"Never wrestle with a pig. You only get dirty and the pig enjoys it."
At least this is more my opinion, despite some authors are doing which is leaning into the fight in order to create spectacle for promotion of their works. I just wonder at what cost in the end, and is that something I want to be known for?
They learn to look for easier targets. But yes there are those dedicated trolls who will just repeat their nonsense despite you debunking them. Then I’m all for the block. Let them screech into the void
100,000 times THIS! I now casually drop truth bombs at the local bar like “fucking trannies man… mentally ill shit. They need to put them all on an island and have battle royale on pay per view.
And guess what? 90% of people laugh.
5% TOPS asks a couple of questions like “are you homophobic?” But gentle and “ha ha don’t hurt me” type of jokey manner, at which point I bring up things like the incidence of child sexual abuse by fags. At which point they squirm before changing subject or leaving. And then there is the MAYBE other 5% that….
Wow, a refreshing read. I might be new to all this, but I have a highly sensitive bullshit detector and I suspected a lot of what she said already. Thanks for writing this and having Tia weigh in. It's got to be good enough to write a book and let that be the reward.
I've been doing this for 26 years full-time. I've nailed 250K advances and far more smaller advances, sold 1.5 million editions, with some titles selling hundreds of thousands of copies, and yet the publisher, for some stupid reason would find a reason for me to move on. I started my own imprint for publishing titles no mainstream publisher would ever touch for one reason or another and I've seen writers, editors, publishers, and agents come and go. I even had the same agent as Jeff Lindsay and his wife (who is Ernest Hemingway's niece) in Manhattan (he rejected Dexter). I've been on top of the world and I've been in the basement and I've lost the wives and hit all the bestseller lists (the ones that count) and won the awards and I've travelled the world and still live a life most would dream of. But for the life of me I will never understand the lack of logic, lack of loyalty, and most of all, the lack of common sense that stains this industry. It boggles the mind. The best you can hope for is to write what you love and get it out there one way or another, and fuck 'em if the mainstream doesn't like it. Do what works for you and most of all, survive.
“The lipstick lesbian trust fund girls.” If that doesn’t explain so much, I don’t know what does! 😆
Yeah, I thought this was brilliant!
This makes me scoff at advice from former tradpub editors like Alissa Matesic to "do the work" and "never touch AI," when in reality agents are mostly looking to check boxes. They are not looking for the people who "did the work." Half probably don't even know what "the work" looks like. So if you're only pursuing tradpub, honestly, why would you follow that advice? Takes the wind out of the sails, doesn't it?
Now, me--I can't *not* do the work. I don't even know how much I can change my own ideas to fit broad commercial appeal, micro-genres or hot keywords. So it's indie all the way, baby.
I had a discussion with some writer friends recently about using AI. One friend is actively using it to help him write his first novel that is planning to query. And because of the industry he works in, I have no doubt he will be able to get someone to look at it. Anyway, we had a friendly disagreement over it. He warned that writers not using AI are going to get left behind. And I said, so be it. I simply want to do the writing. It's hard, and I fail to get it done sometimes, but instructing AI to do a thing I feel compelled to do is never going to satisfy that compulsion.
Yeah, I think some of these tradpub-type influencers are high on their own supply. I in no way endorse deceptive tactics, it's just, how can you not expect people to seize everything they think will be an advantage in such a hyper-competitive market? They're just going to follow all the rules on your agent website because tradpub runs on honor and integrity and *hard work?* gtfo.
They are looking for people who will write and then do the agent’s and the publisher’s job too. They suck. Social media sucks because it destroys a piece of what makes you want to write.
I've got a copy of Knut Hamsen's Hunger permanently sitting above my desk. In that one, the protagonist is literally starving to death while writing a newspaper article for the money he needs to feed himself.
I think about that and how WEAK so many writers I know are. The "damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead", kiss my black ass (as Tia Ja'nae says here), etc. attitude should be the only attitude writers have. But it was sold to a lot of people as this respectable, viable life path if you get good grades in school. A thing you can pull off with the right connections and cutesie little cosmopolitan games.
Nah, man! It's a punk-ass move to write really original books. Actual literature. If it's really good stuff, you're challenging orthodoxy and bureaucracy that'll get in the way. 99% of the writers I know sound like they've come up in some soft times--the times are shit now, leave that delusion behind. You have a lot more in common with Hamsen than that vanilla scented trust fund BookTok lady you follow.
I just don't think our times are that special or interesting. One shouldn't be getting too in the weeds about the cultural climate or the industry until they've written like 10 brilliant unpublished manuscripts and is chasing publication. Just do it, punk ass!
Spot on. Who looks at the modern author and says “Oh yes, that’s who I want to be when I grow up.” No one
Honestly, I think that started with the complete destruction of magazine reading. When Asa Barber was editor of Playboy, there was more exposure to authors (think how much Hunter S. Thompson or Alex Haley gained being a writer for them). Now, magazine subscription is dead and barely buried.
Agreed!
I'm a magazine writer/editor and magazines are a key interface between the public and longform writing/writers--especially new and rising talents. As the traditional magazine business model has gone through hell over the last 15 years or so and the digital world hasn't stepped up with a cohesive alternative, the public has become estranged from the writer. By writer, I mean a single, breathing human who makes a living from selling his or her longform. In the crippling (not complete death, but close) of American magazines, this entire essential conduit has been closed off between the writer and public.
Writers need to be connected to NORMIES, the layperson taking the bus to work, in order to actually thrive selling their work the real way. But without connectors like magazines, the whole game becomes about playing the bureaucracies for library distribution deals, weird and mysterious activist monies, kooky advances with fuzzy maths, cliquey New York City politics, etc. A class/education/personal connections split worsens as cocktail party and institution snobs become the arbiters of success, not those bus riding normies who would be voting for good stuff with their wallets in a healthy system.
The magazine was to the longform writer what the midsized comedy club stage is to comedians. If there was no comedy club stage, you'd have a huge gulf between really pitiful characters doing sets under overpasses to bums and the celeb brands that are more of a hyper managed corporation that makes money like show business. That's what writers look like right now imo. Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential started as popular ESSAYS in The New Yorker for crying out loud. That's how it's supposed to be and was until 10 - 15 years ago. We're not going to get edgy, organically popular line cook misadventures and memoirs like that anymore in the current setup.
But I'm not a doomer, culture is dynamic. There's a low key resurgence of magazines and Substack is the long awaited social media for longform I think. Also the self-publishing road, while no promised land, is viable to some. There's good stuff starting to happen.
Magazines shot themselves on the foot when they initially refused to acclimate to online, and then when they did went generic and free with content. There was zero excuse for that. That, unfortunately created a bipolar business model. Magazines like Rolling Stone abandoned journalism and now is pay to play. Give them 200 and they will put you in the mag online. Nobody is reading them, yet it spawned bullshit like 50 cents' online mag, etc.
The digital world has had plenty of alternatives. Writers can always get together and make their own magazine. I've tried to get writers I know and trust their work to do that. Problem is, WRITERS TODAY ARE LAZY FOR THE MOST PART. They don't want any skin in the game and the responsibility of running things for themselves. They want others to do it and then jump in and get an accolade once the heavy lifting has occurred. They are willing to give their stories up for free or for chump change rates to say Ellery Queen but then won't invest in themselves and build their own marketplace, which is sorely needed. And contrary to popular opinion, it cost damn near nothing now to get a web domain and build a site. Most of these "magazines" are still using blogspot domains! Truly a sign of unprofessionalism.
Writers are only cut off from the public because the public has taken a step back and writers haven't gotten off their asses creatively to bring the people what they WANT. Writers know big time pubs like The Atlantic are ignoring great writers with their laundry list of censorshipisms, but they would rather suck up and kiss their ass than make something that blows them out the water. See the previous paragraph.
As far as Substack, it's going to be a echo chamber like BlueSky, stuck with writers writing for other writers. Eventually it will be like Twitter, fractured but whole, with a few at the top getting subscriptions and the rest writing for free, which is what's already happening. A following here, there, or anywhere will never guarantee support of one's work outside the space, as people are creatures of habit.
I'm a pessimist. I don't see good stuff happening. I see stagnancy.
Totally, I'm with ya! Writers are generally pretty damn lazy and bad at grasping concepts that you outline about marketplaces and whatnot. They are naturally sort of vain, vaguely shamanic, often unambitious and antisocial weirdos. Bless their hearts.
Maybe our big tone difference is that I see what you're lamenting as an opportunity. The stagnation, mediocrity, chaos, etc. is great news for a new generation with an entrepreneurial spirit. Even the whole "men don't read fiction anymore" dynamic should make a certain person's lips smack... MILLIONS of people who used to read could be activated to read again with books they like, marketing for them, etc. All one would have to do is have some resources and have the guts to flip off the dogmas of the sickly industry. Ideologically, it's great because it'll help literature. But the business case is awesome too--real deal profits.
Necessity is what drives change. That the system blows in every way right now makes it vulnerable. More and more folks, including writers, are hip to this. The future belongs to the challengers of this crappy era, not the incumbents imo.
Eh, the opportunity is there but the writers who can pull it off are not. Hence why there's so much wasted energy into 1,001 anthologies every year that literally no one asked for nor is reading without begging family/friends/fellow writers to buy.
There are plenty of people, men included, that want the type of fiction that say I write for example, but they don't want to pay the inflation to read it. I can't go down on the price of my novel at this point - pussy grabber racism is expensive and with the tariffs the book is damn near 3x more from shipping alone. Thanks to Amazon people have become complacent with cheap books, including the authors who have taken a strong attitude they can't possibly make any money selling a book so they aren't even trying to make it profitable (and that goes with them not understanding the business, a point I'll be writing about soon).
Necessity in analog times drives change. That does not apply in digital times, because if it did we would be in the golden era of DIY/Indie books and dominating and we are not. This is why on my next releases I'm throwing out live five novels together and letting them sit up there. No book cover reveal, no ARCs (which thanks to the politics of that I refuse to do after my first novel), and no release date. That's going to be the future of a lot of writers, they just don't know that.
In America specifically, writing is becoming a dying art, like playing an instrument. The writers don't love their work enough to defend it and sue the shit out of Zuckerberg for stealing it for AI let alone pricing it accordingly. The entire playing ground just stinks to high hell. For every one like me you have 10,000 just waiting on their "big break" or feel like they should go along to get along because it may turn into something and it normally doesn't.
I'm that weirdo when I was a teenager. I got lost on the way for many years.
I don’t know when everybody got so damn sensitive. What’s happening now is that the snowflakes are destroying contemporary literature and classic literature. It’s like they mad the great Elmore Leonard didn’t refuse to write Rum Punch because Jackie Brown was Black and he didn’t “feel it was his story to tell”. Just look at what happened to Ian Fleming’s books. Disgraceful.
I’m sure my latest novel probably has those types begging the government for 1984 level of censorship (which I will shameless plug drop right here https://www.thegreatbritishbookshop.co.uk/products/flicking-the-bic-1).
Respectable? I have never met an actual writer who was not a degenerate, a criminal of some sort, fucking crazy, or just wild and not able to be domesticated. Think PKD. Think Henry Miller. Writers are not normal people. Who the fuck writes 400,000 words about a whole hidden society on Mars and Nazis on the Moon and does probably just as much work to work out the reproduction rates of populations, researches obscure too secret tech and military secrets just for the FUN of it. And not even make money at it?
Me. That’s who. And you. If you’re a writer. Except you might be all about the hypothetical society of Lemurs living in the Amazon. And mechanical predators in the oceans of Europa.
You've clearly never been to a standard writers conference or book fair my fired up friend! You will find mimosa-brunch vibes and very LinkedIn friendly personalities dominate with a surreally oppressive power. Nurse Rachet won, McMurphy is dead.
I said “actual writer”. Read better.
I've been thinking about many of the issues you've raised. But you nailed it with the lipstick lesbian trust fund girls. Many of whom are aspiring authors themselves, which makes what's already a silo even darker. I wasn't certain you'd referred to that when you mentioned 'competing.' With the new administration, some of these ills with regards to wokewokewoke will be corrected, at least at the grant and fellowship level and maybe this will have a ripple effect. I wonder how long (or if) we'll ever see it in publishing. Since many small presses are dependent on government grants, things might get worse before better.
I sent out 50 queries to well-researched literary agents. I did not receive any feedback other than "not a good fit," "I didn't connect to the sample material" type form letters. Versions and excerpts of the same material has been published in respective literary journals, so I'm pretty sure it's not a question of quality or writing ability. I'm thinking that my main character is a cantankerous, middle-aged, cisgender white woman. Self-publishing is looking more and more attractive as time goes on. Kiss my black ass.
Here’s a little story about how its not going to get better.
Did you know before 1990, the National Endowment of the Arts had like a 500 million dollar kitty, split equally between anybody that applied for it across the entire scope of the arts (so we’re talking the entire complex of Fine Arts here, which in 1988 was a hell of a lot of money if say only 10000 people applied).
A Black gay filmmaker named Marlon Riggs applied for the grant to finance his second film “Tongues Untied”. The film was a living Eulogy, filled with nude black gay men who, like the filmmaker, had AIDS and wanted to deliver their own verbal performance piece styled eulogies and let the world see how they essentially were being neglected and left to die for being “like that”.
When it premiered on PBS nationwide in 1991, some stations around the country wouldn’t run it. It became so politicized that presidential candidate Pat Buchanan literally forced the Republicans to take a tough on Black Gay filmmakers stance and used it to slut shame George HW Bush every chance he got in the weirdest culture war the country had seen in 30 years.
This was part of the attack on Black artists, which at the same time you had the creation of the PMRC on the horizon as well. Condemned as “pornographic” by right-wing pundits who distorted the film’s content, “Tongues Untied” was debated in the halls of Congress as the movie became the centerpiece of how the National Endowments of the Arts (NEA) distributes its funding and a significant defunding of that kitty, which shrank down to something like 25 million across all of the arts.
So no, its not going to get better. Pussy Grabber POTUS has completely defunded what the Republicans didn’t do 35 years ago. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/03/nx-s1-5385888/sweeping-cuts-hit-nea-after-trump-administration-calls-to-eliminate-the-agency
There will be no correction but a hell of a lot more censorship coming.
Inject this directly into my veins
Yeesss!!
More confirmation of the truth and some great points. Although "Step up or step off" in person might end up very badly in today's society. I may or may not have the benefit of lots of abandoned mine shafts or hollers to conclude such an encounter if it came to that, but the most efficient method I still endorse first is "cast ignore" with the ban/block/mute. It's the internet version of the same thing.
Apathy and silence does so much to drive the Cluster B Cancel Pigs berserk better than letting them get the negative attention they've been craving from mommy and daddy but decided you're an excellent proxy. Give that final dagger stick by informing them they're going on ignore and subverting their rage under your own power by "granting them permission" to have the last word as an extra F you on the way out. Nothing sucks their fun out of the upcoming psychotic spurg by pre-emptively assuming their agency. A little passive aggressive shot to concentrate that radioactive salt.
I live!!! This is exactly where I stand in all of this!! What a beautiful and human response to the 🫖 tea!! Oh this warms me up!!
YES! I read her comments and just knew I had to share these out. Just too good to keep to myself
I love people that see the evolution of how we got here. It fascinates me and it’s so important to hold on to as the industry continues to shift and change. Asking why is exactly what everyone should be doing!!
Pretty much what I been doing for 30 years and i have some 20+ books out there but I am terrible at self promotion. I know because the odd time I do mention something about a book of mine that gets picked up I tend to get loyal readers after that and the books have all got high star ratings from actual readers, but it’s getting the masses to know you exist that’s difficult.
Very true
All of this. I have largely STFU, and just do the work. I do NOT have time for the Social drama, even on stuff like Discord. I DGAF what your politics/religion/personal beleifs are. Like Heinlein said, One man's beliefs are another man's belly laugh.
friend, I need to follow your example. The further into this I get, the more I'm seeing that gatekeeping is alive and well even in our small indie circles and I'm gettin' real tired of the high school drama.
I want to find good solid friends and am learning to leave the rest behind!
Agreed and same
Holy cow, what a read! Heh, it would be funny for me, pasty fat white guy, to tell someone to 'kiss my black ass!'.
Do it with as much passion as winning the lottery. :-).
KISS MY BLACK ASS? Great title for a novel!
This is good!
Regarding final thought #1: If taking the high road does not work, what does?
Smacking them back until they learn. For instance, my mentions on Twitter have been pretty quiet. Why? They know I won’t apologize. They know they can’t get me fired. They know my reputation does not rely on their favor. And they know I know it.
Being loud has brought them power in the past. Be louder. If they threaten your livelihood, attack their ego. “You think you can ruin my career? Well here’s your ‘accountability post’ saying you earn $50k a year as a lit agent. Awfully big mouth for someone making less than a steakhouse waitress.”
Never take sass from these losers. They only have standing if you give it to them
Do they really learn? I remember debating these same types of asshats online over politics for a decade. No one ever learned. They're not there to have honest discussion. They're mostly there to try and exercise power they lack in real life, and piss in other people's corn flakes because they find it fun. You can "fisk" them, turn their arguments inside out, mock the hell out of them, meme them into oblivion and they just keep coming back with a "Harder daddy" attitude because that's the whole point. Their narcissism/main character syndrome mental disorders are getting their itches scratched like a bear rubbing it's back against the corner of your house hoping you'll bribe them away with control over your life or society tossing them a dumpster full of treats to go away.
I mean if you're being entertained by beating them like a rented mule, all the more power to you. I finally got exhausted when I realized it was just fodder for gossip and trainwreck watchers. In many ways two Mark Twain quotes fit the situation perfectly.
"Never argue with a fool. He'll only drag you down to his level and beat you with experience."
and
"Never wrestle with a pig. You only get dirty and the pig enjoys it."
At least this is more my opinion, despite some authors are doing which is leaning into the fight in order to create spectacle for promotion of their works. I just wonder at what cost in the end, and is that something I want to be known for?
They learn to look for easier targets. But yes there are those dedicated trolls who will just repeat their nonsense despite you debunking them. Then I’m all for the block. Let them screech into the void
Absolutely true. It takes very little pushback to detect which one they are.
100,000 times THIS! I now casually drop truth bombs at the local bar like “fucking trannies man… mentally ill shit. They need to put them all on an island and have battle royale on pay per view.
And guess what? 90% of people laugh.
5% TOPS asks a couple of questions like “are you homophobic?” But gentle and “ha ha don’t hurt me” type of jokey manner, at which point I bring up things like the incidence of child sexual abuse by fags. At which point they squirm before changing subject or leaving. And then there is the MAYBE other 5% that….
SHUTS THE FUCK UP AND NEVER SPEAKS TO ME AGAIN.
Tell me that’s not a HUGE win?!
We’re not supposed to notice things
Wow, a refreshing read. I might be new to all this, but I have a highly sensitive bullshit detector and I suspected a lot of what she said already. Thanks for writing this and having Tia weigh in. It's got to be good enough to write a book and let that be the reward.