Publishing Doesn't Owe You

A Tough Love Post

Hi Friends,

Fair warning for a tough love post. If you’re feeling fragile today, about your work, about the industry, about books, maybe take a bye on this one and come back to it. Of course, this vulnerability is what we’re talking about today. It’s just not going to be a super warm and fuzzy post.

We had a SPECTACULAR discussion in the comments on the Tuesday Free-For-All post, and if you haven’t checked it out, you should. Lots of questions asked and answered. Lots of valuable information shared. Someone asked, too, how to deal with how hard it is to get an agent, get published, get noticed. Because it is hard and on top of that it takes forever. Insult to injury, in deed.

I said I could write 10,000 words on this, and here is about a tenth of that. So, how do you deal? You take care of you, because publishing is not going to do it. Publishing does not owe it to you to be easier, faster, clearer, more lucrative, or give you a hug. Should it be more equitable? Yes. Should it eradicate all traces of systemic racism, sexism, ablism, homophobia, transphobia, and more? Yes. Should Publishing as a whole pay and treat its employees better and hire more of them? YES. But that’s not the same thing as people answering your emails (or my emails!!!!) faster because you (and me!!) want them to.