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Having worked in the publishing industry, my experiences support the conclusions of this article. About ~40% of authors I worked with had diagnosed mental heal

Having worked in the publishing industry, my experiences support the conclusions of this article. About ~40% of authors I worked with had diagnosed mental health issues, and were quite open about their struggles. Most were a delight to work with--I strongly admire people who can be open and honest about their struggles. But about ~15% were... not so delightful. Working with them was hell, because they'd flip-flop constantly between treating me as sworn enemy or best friend. Their twitter feeds reflected this attitude. They were quick to pick fights with bewildered victims, to scream to the skies how evil X person was, how they were the victim of X's behavior. Having worked with them, I knew they were unstable and to ignore their online shrieking. But to an outsider.... All outsiders see is an award-winning author, touted as a genius, with that little blue check mark declaring that they're a respected member of their field. So of course they're going to listen when that author screams that they've been victimized. Of course, pointing out that this person is mentally ill isn't an option--for one, it's confidential information. For two, you'll be fired for being "disability-phobic". So there's no choice but to sit back and watch the unstable troll rip apart other people. It's horrible. And it's one of the reasons I left the publishing industry. It's slowly and steadily being overrun by mentally unstable trolls, and it's starting to have a serious impact on which books get published and which don't. (Hint: anything that might possibly trigger the trolls will NOT get a publishing contract.)

Dracophoenix 5y ago
If you wouldn't mind my asking how does someone get in contact with a publisher to write a book? Not to sound condescending, but if someone with mental health issues can get a good deal, what makes this industry difficult for most others to break into?
- paperwasp42 5y ago
  The difficulty is in writing a publishable manuscript. Most authors spend about a decade and several practice manuscripts honing their craft before they are published. Publishing doesn't require working 9-5, or daily check ins, or other things that generally handicap people with mental health issues. So you'll see a lot more authors with serious mental health issue than, say, software programmers (and personally, I think this is an amazing and positive thing, in many ways. Like I said, most of these mentally ill authors are just fantastic human beings who I loved working with). Of course, their mental illness doesn't make them any less talented or brilliant. Actually, I observed the opposite--the authors I worked with who were truly genius generally struggled with some variety of mental illness. To get in contact with a publisher, generally you need to first be represented by a literary agent. This is another faucet of publishing that enables more people with mental illness to thrive in the industry. Agents can act as the professional, polished barrier between the publisher and author, which makes a publisher less likely to even realize the author has mental health issues until the contract is done and signed. Again, this has pros and cons. The pros is that a lot of amazing people with mental health struggles manage to get contracts, without publishers having the chance to discriminate. The con is that some trolls get contracts as well, without the publisher realizing what kind of person they're signing on.

Dracophoenix 5y ago

If you wouldn't mind my asking how does someone get in contact with a publisher to write a book? Not to sound condescending, but if someone with mental health issues can get a good deal, what makes this industry difficult for most others to break into?

paperwasp42 5y ago
The difficulty is in writing a publishable manuscript. Most authors spend about a decade and several practice manuscripts honing their craft before they are published. Publishing doesn't require working 9-5, or daily check ins, or other things that generally handicap people with mental health issues. So you'll see a lot more authors with serious mental health issue than, say, software programmers (and personally, I think this is an amazing and positive thing, in many ways. Like I said, most of these mentally ill authors are just fantastic human beings who I loved working with). Of course, their mental illness doesn't make them any less talented or brilliant. Actually, I observed the opposite--the authors I worked with who were truly genius generally struggled with some variety of mental illness. To get in contact with a publisher, generally you need to first be represented by a literary agent. This is another faucet of publishing that enables more people with mental illness to thrive in the industry. Agents can act as the professional, polished barrier between the publisher and author, which makes a publisher less likely to even realize the author has mental health issues until the contract is done and signed. Again, this has pros and cons. The pros is that a lot of amazing people with mental health struggles manage to get contracts, without publishers having the chance to discriminate. The con is that some trolls get contracts as well, without the publisher realizing what kind of person they're signing on.