I thought I'd share a little story today about the worst publishing advice I've ever received.
It involves a library book reading, a room where everyone was at least 20 years older than me, and a jaw-dropping tale of luck.
Author Sarah and the Worst Publishing Advice: https://veocorva.xyz/2023/01/10/author-sarah-and-the-worst-publishing-advice/
@vicorva ...
amazing
@rowyn I was honestly stunned for a lot of it.
@vicorva I think "your book doesn't need to be good, publishers will buy stuff they hate" is the most astonishing
@rowyn for me it was that her editor *wrote* some of her chapters
That's not an editor! That's a co-writer!
@vicorva Ah, I was just reading a post by an editor who said that under certain circumstances she would do revisions herself and ask the author for approval, so the "rewrote several chapters" didn't strike me as much.
@rowyn D: like actual re-write revisions, not just some light editing?
*really* happy I'm self-published
@vicorva I don't know, but I don't know what Author Sarah really meant by "rewrote" either. 😂
@rowyn I mean she said her editor wrote loads of it herself so ... I'm wary
I *hope* it was just revisions and she was just exaggerating, that would be reassuring.
@vicorva "My agent and publisher both hated my book and bought it anyway" is already so implausible that it's hard to imagine Author Sarah as a reliable narrator here. <_<
@rowyn that is a very good point :/
@vicorva @rowyn Finished the tale. That's just so... odd.
Reminds me a bit of commentary I've seen from YouTubers discussing YouTube advice. ~"[Famous YouTuber offering expensive course] can't tell you how to become successful because no one can. I'm successful and I can't. I can tell you what I did, but the reason that worked was so unique to place and time and luck that I have no idea if that would work for you, and I sure as hell can't guarantee it."~ (Approxiquotes because I am paraphrasing quite thoroughly.)
@skysailor @vicorva Yeah, a lot of people are like "here's how I became successful and it will work for you too!* while the wise ones are much more like that YouTuber.
I mean, A Rational Arrangement has sold like 5 times as many copies as any other title in my catalog. I can't even replicate *my own* success, never mind somebody else's!
@rowyn @skysailor definitely very weird
I respect advice that is like 'I don't know; my experience was lucky and very specific' much more tbh
@vicorva @skysailor Oh and the other thing I was thinking: literary fiction is the smallest and most pretentious of genres. So that would've influenced her experience of tradpub in a very different way from the tradpub we usually hear about.
@rowyn @skysailor I told Joh how I was recounting the story and Joh has provided an additional detail I forgot: she first met the editor via an event her husband was hosting, and the editor suggested book blogging as a means of getting published.
So ... yeah. :/
@vicorva @rowyn @skysailor It sounds an awful lot like this editor was pushing some sort of agenda, but I can't think what it might have been.
@skysailor @terrana @rowyn oh quite possibly!
@vicorva @skysailor @terrana Literary fiction is the smallest genre, so getting free advertising for it may well be a factor. Especially if the editor was from a small press.
@rowyn @vicorva @skysailor @terrana itd have to be a pretty seriously popular blog for that to work though, right? like, been building up a following for a while and all that not ‘oh just start a blog and you’ll get published’
idk the whole thing strikes me as incredibly odd
@vicorva @Satsuma @skysailor @terrana And granted, ten-fifteen years ago the number of book-bloggers was much smaller, so it would've been easier to use one as a networking angle. So if this editor suggested it to Author Sarah as a networking tip in 2010, it would've made more sense than it does in 2023 (or even in, say, 2018.)
@Satsuma @rowyn @skysailor @terrana this is part of why I feel like it's just favours and rich people networking nonsense
though if lit fic is very small, perhaps a book blog review would still be helpful? Not a genre I'm familiar with!