4 ms·

I like the general idea here, about channeling rejections into motivation and progress. That applies to much of life. But when it comes to the publishing indust

I like the general idea here, about channeling rejections into motivation and progress. That applies to much of life. But when it comes to the publishing industry, I can't help but feel the author is advocating yesterday's game. Striving for rejections is fine, but are authors of her mind striving for the right rejections? The most productive rejections? Most publishing houses have a "slush pile" of submitted manuscripts that's always enormous and largely neglected. Usually it's junior staff, interns or fresh grads, who are tasked with "processing the pile" whenever they get a scrap of free time, which is rare. And when they do get around to your manuscript, they'll often just skim the proposal and maybe read a paragraph or two before throwing it into a "review" or "reject" pile. Every time I've seen this scene, it's usually a hundred in "reject" for every one in "review". What is a rejection like this really worth? You've spent maybe years of your life on this manuscript and some kid rejected it in under a minute. IMO, at this point, it's better to seek rejections directly from the market via online self-publishing. Instead of just putting together endless submissions, e-publishing puts the focus on the things that will make you successful regardless: writing for a real audience, soliciting feedback and building community, working on self-promotion, etc. If you do eventually want to go through a traditional publisher, then "I sold 500 copies on Amazon" is going to speak a lot louder than "I assure you people will love my flowery prose".

geerlingguy 10y ago
> IMO, at this point, it's better to seek rejections directly from the market via online self-publishing. I was going to write exactly this. I looked into publishing my book in a traditional manner and found the entire ordeal strange and messy. Instead, I put a cover image and description on LeanPub, found there were 50+ people interested in it (just posting it on my Twitter account and emailing a couple people I knew), and decided to write an intro and a chapter or two to test the waters. Two years and 8,000 sales later, I'm glad I didn't stake my idea of being a successful writer (or my motivation) on getting a random editor at an institution that would like to suck out 50+% of my potential profits. Nowadays, no matter what the type of writing, you can test the waters by self-publishing. The upside is any success you have can result in real dollars/income instead of a stressful and tenuous relationship with a traditional publisher! Ironically, after my book started becoming successful, I had reps from the major tech publishers start asking if I would like to relicense the book to them in exchange for their marketing, while simultaneously giving up about 40% of the profit margin I currently enjoy.
- cm3 10y ago
  Given the online channels and on-demand-print, why would anyone release via a record label or book publisher? What's the advantage? Is it professional representation/management?
  - geerlingguy 10y ago
    I think some of the traditional reasons are editing support, marketing support, and the idea of being on real-world bookstore shelves. For the first two, it's just a matter of whether you want to/can put in the time to hire out your own editor, do your own marketing, etc. For the last, it comes down to vanity. For tech books especially (but for many other types as well), the world has moved on beyond brick-and-mortar book sales, and the audience you cut off by excluding bookstore relationships is very small. Every time I've done a rational comparison of 'should I keep self-publishing or should I go to a publisher?' I find that for money (not that we're talking 'quit-your-job' levels for 98% of writers), for stress management, and for personal brand building, there is no upside to using a publisher.
    - cm3 10y ago
      Agreed, having good editors is highly valuable.
  - dilemma 10y ago
    Marketing and distribution can increase sales hundred fold. A committed editor can also significantly improve the quality of the work (an editor that doesn't care or doesn't get it can have negative impact, though).
- projectramo 10y ago
  There might be a difference between non-fiction and fiction in this regard. A non-fiction work can still really benefit from an editorial pass for readability and usability, but I think for fiction we need a much better external editor to tell us it needs more work.
projectramo 10y ago
One of the benefits of an editor, or the slush pile, is that at least you have someone else vouch for quality. You have 1/100 chance of making it to review and maybe 1/4 after that so you are in the top 0.25% of work out there. If you self-publish it, you may not know and there is so much other stuff out there. Also, this is relevant, the author seems to be talking about short stories which you could produce at the rate of 1/day. This is not true of novels.
- verisimilidude 10y ago
  This is an article about rejections though, and my point is the slush pile is a very low quality source of rejection. It tells you very little about why you were rejected and what you can do to improve. If you succeed via the slush, that's great, but if you don't, you're likely not getting much, if any, actionable feedback. This is where self-publishing shines, because you can get substantive and immediate feedback from a real audience, even if that audience is small.
  - projectramo 10y ago
    Interesting. You know it strikes me that the idea of having one review and pushing out an unchanging copy is a pre-digital idea. We should be able to indefinitely change the works we have out. In the future we will have arguments like: "Did you enjoy Snow Crash?" "I liked the 1998 version, it was so well written." "Nah, I liked the 2016 version when he updated it so it reflected cell phones." "You're both wrong, the 2005 version was the sweet spot!"
    - verisimilidude 10y ago
      This already happens to some extent with textbooks, movies, and especially video games. So it's not a huge stretch to imagine the same iterative trends more broadly in written works. I think it's fine as long as all released revisions remain available.
      - projectramo 10y ago
joe_the_user 10y ago
I get the impression that the process of seeking isn't so much directly about how one relates to publishers but how one relates to one's self. Rejection is extremely hard for most people to experience and so fear of rejection can determine a lot of one's activities. "Seeking rejection" is a way to be not-determined by the need for acceptance. Thus it allows someone to shape their writing that accords with their own vision. Hopefully a good thing (but no guarantees).

geerlingguy 10y ago

> IMO, at this point, it's better to seek rejections directly from the market via online self-publishing. I was going to write exactly this. I looked into publishing my book in a traditional manner and found the entire ordeal strange and messy. Instead, I put a cover image and description on LeanPub, found there were 50+ people interested in it (just posting it on my Twitter account and emailing a couple people I knew), and decided to write an intro and a chapter or two to test the waters. Two years and 8,000 sales later, I'm glad I didn't stake my idea of being a successful writer (or my motivation) on getting a random editor at an institution that would like to suck out 50+% of my potential profits. Nowadays, no matter what the type of writing, you can test the waters by self-publishing. The upside is any success you have can result in real dollars/income instead of a stressful and tenuous relationship with a traditional publisher! Ironically, after my book started becoming successful, I had reps from the major tech publishers start asking if I would like to relicense the book to them in exchange for their marketing, while simultaneously giving up about 40% of the profit margin I currently enjoy.

cm3 10y ago
Given the online channels and on-demand-print, why would anyone release via a record label or book publisher? What's the advantage? Is it professional representation/management?
- geerlingguy 10y ago
  I think some of the traditional reasons are editing support, marketing support, and the idea of being on real-world bookstore shelves. For the first two, it's just a matter of whether you want to/can put in the time to hire out your own editor, do your own marketing, etc. For the last, it comes down to vanity. For tech books especially (but for many other types as well), the world has moved on beyond brick-and-mortar book sales, and the audience you cut off by excluding bookstore relationships is very small. Every time I've done a rational comparison of 'should I keep self-publishing or should I go to a publisher?' I find that for money (not that we're talking 'quit-your-job' levels for 98% of writers), for stress management, and for personal brand building, there is no upside to using a publisher.
  - cm3 10y ago
    Agreed, having good editors is highly valuable.
- dilemma 10y ago
  Marketing and distribution can increase sales hundred fold. A committed editor can also significantly improve the quality of the work (an editor that doesn't care or doesn't get it can have negative impact, though).
projectramo 10y ago
There might be a difference between non-fiction and fiction in this regard. A non-fiction work can still really benefit from an editorial pass for readability and usability, but I think for fiction we need a much better external editor to tell us it needs more work.

projectramo 10y ago

One of the benefits of an editor, or the slush pile, is that at least you have someone else vouch for quality. You have 1/100 chance of making it to review and maybe 1/4 after that so you are in the top 0.25% of work out there. If you self-publish it, you may not know and there is so much other stuff out there. Also, this is relevant, the author seems to be talking about short stories which you could produce at the rate of 1/day. This is not true of novels.

verisimilidude 10y ago
This is an article about rejections though, and my point is the slush pile is a very low quality source of rejection. It tells you very little about why you were rejected and what you can do to improve. If you succeed via the slush, that's great, but if you don't, you're likely not getting much, if any, actionable feedback. This is where self-publishing shines, because you can get substantive and immediate feedback from a real audience, even if that audience is small.
- projectramo 10y ago
  Interesting. You know it strikes me that the idea of having one review and pushing out an unchanging copy is a pre-digital idea. We should be able to indefinitely change the works we have out. In the future we will have arguments like: "Did you enjoy Snow Crash?" "I liked the 1998 version, it was so well written." "Nah, I liked the 2016 version when he updated it so it reflected cell phones." "You're both wrong, the 2005 version was the sweet spot!"
  - verisimilidude 10y ago
    This already happens to some extent with textbooks, movies, and especially video games. So it's not a huge stretch to imagine the same iterative trends more broadly in written works. I think it's fine as long as all released revisions remain available.
    - projectramo 10y ago

joe_the_user 10y ago

I get the impression that the process of seeking isn't so much directly about how one relates to publishers but how one relates to one's self. Rejection is extremely hard for most people to experience and so fear of rejection can determine a lot of one's activities. "Seeking rejection" is a way to be not-determined by the need for acceptance. Thus it allows someone to shape their writing that accords with their own vision. Hopefully a good thing (but no guarantees).