Modern Editorial Boards
I have just about fucking had it, traditional publishers. You want to know why self-publishing is upping its game? Why you’re making less and less money while more and more authors “betray” you by switching over to Amazon and publishing their own goddamn shit so you can’t skim your fucking humongous cut off the top anymore?
I will fucking tell you: It’s because you’re all fucking pussies.
You want to find The Next Big Thing? Then stop spending 6 and 7 figures on Twilight knockoffs and distilled versions of The Hunger Games set in even less believable shitty future realms than Panem.
“We want something NEW and UNIQUE” you constantly decry in every public sphere available. But as soon as something fucking amazing and weird and hard to categorize lands in your lap, your marketing/publishing/editorial boards start going “whoa, wait, we’ve never seen this before. How will we shelve it in B&N? What books can we compare it to on Amazon to increase traffic? What similar authors can we find to blurb it? There aren’t any! THIS IS TOO HARD, WAHHH” so you fucking cop out and buy another Paranormal Justification for Pedophelia that’s only “unique” feature is to somehow twist yet another notoriously evil, ancient, spine-tingling monster into a hot teenage boy for the MC to fawn over.
Do I sound bitter? Well, I am. It’s impractical for authors to publish traditionally, especially now that print-on-demand and ebooks have advanced so far. But, having browsed the fanfic.net equivalent of the slushpile, I know what the average reader will be facing if trad publishing collapses entirely. Contrary to whatever you’re thinking right now, I’M ON YOUR SIDE, guys. I want publishing to stick around. I want authors to feel that thrill of seeing their book on a shelf in B&N and their deal announced in Publisher’s Lunch, rather than just having their self-designed cover pop up on Amazon like some intangible figment of their imagination.
But you all need to fucking get your act together, or you’ll soon be as obsolete as typewriter manufacturers.
In short: Grow a spine.
Preach it.
The “comp title” stage of the acquisition process is the fucking lynchpin here, I think. Well, we don’t know how to sell a transgender book because we’ve never done it before. We don’t know how to sell historicals because, I mean they’re great and all, but well do kids really READ them? Do kids really CARE about other races or other countries or about anything about some hot guy coming out of the woods/underworld/zoo/whatever to show them the feeling of twu wuv?
TAKE A FUCKING CHANCE.
Also, white/straight people won’t read books about minority or LGBTQ characters — they are only capable of reading books about characters JUST LIKE THEM, duh. Unlike minorities, who are just fine reading books about those same white/straight people. Why would they mind?!
Motherfucking preach, lady.
NYC has become the Hollywood of publishing. You can no longer sell smart, quirky, inventive, bold books. They only want derivative dreck because they are too terrified to throw marketing dollars at anything else. Sure, they’ll still buy dozens of titles every season, but we all know only the knockoffs get any marketing.
Just like film, publishing is now producing the same tired shit over and over and over.
This is bestseller/blockbuster culture right here. Don’t want it unless we can sell a billion of it and make the BS list. BS, indeed.
HOW TO SUCCEED IN (publishing) BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING:
Ingredients: Shy and/or antisocial, insecure, yet still snarky human female; mysterious “bad boy” (but who is a complete pushover the second the main female shows up) who is either part supernatural-yet-still-attractive-creature or the secret member of some underground anti-government gang and also a total BAMF; moony best guy friend with the hots for the MC; idiotic best girl friends and side characters; some guy/girl/sibling/parent everyone loves a lot.
Instructions: Toss into strict world with external limitations preventing them from being together, kill off the guy/girl/sibling/parent everyone loves, force the friendzoned boy to confess his undying love, sprinkle the “twoo” lovebirds liberally with angst, and throw in a bad guy at the end who tries to shoot everyone. End on a cliffhanger where we don’t know for sure which guy she has chosen — er, I mean, how the world is about to end (because that’s totes important, kind of, a little bit, ehhh, who really cares).
Bake well for 10 minutes, sell to publishing house for a million dollars, sign movie deal, bask in adoring 15-year-old fangirl praise, and bitch angrily at anyone who disses your book. Rinse, repeat with book 2 of insipid trilogy, etc.
…
/wrists
This is why I haven’t bothered to look at the YA on the shelves of bookstores lately.
I debated whether or not I should entertain the argument, but what the heck, I’ll bite. To set the stage: I don’t have an agent, nor do I have a publishing contract. I am not particularly interested in self-publishing, although, I do not judge anyone who chooses that path.
Now, then…
Publishing houses will buy what will sell. They are a business, and they are in it for money, just like any other business. They have bills to pay, salaries to deliver, costs to cover, and crazy idea, they want to make a profit (oh, the nerve of some businesses!) They are not out to get you. Your success is their success. Your income is their bread and butter.
In any case… I wonder, how much of their money does an average person invest in a start-up business? I know I’ve never done such a thing. Now, imagine you get to pick one out of thousands to make an investment. Your instincts, your taste, your understanding of the market will all play into your choice. THAT’s what publishing is about when it comes to finding the next best-seller. If they believe your book will sell – they are interested. If they don’t – they are not. They could be right to pass on your book, they could be wrong, but at the end of the day it is their money, so how can you fault them for not spending it how they see please?! I sure hope no one gets all up in arms about my personal investments, thank you very much. Each company, just like each individual, has as much right to make the choice on financial risks they take.
The Twilight argument is old and tiring. Get over it. Meyer deserved every penny she earned because she told the story millions wanted to read. You think it’s trash, and I think it’s great to see a teenager who hasn’t read a book in years to stick with 4 titles about 2000 pages long. Awful morals in the story? How about world-wide celebrated double-suicide inspired by a tragic play about children middle school age? You have problem with age? Juliette’s mother was 12 when she gave birth. This insanity of false morality has to stop! Classical literature is no picnic, and to dissect YA market in the way you do, but to pretend that well-respected titles don’t have similar faults is naive, or is coming from a background of limited exposure to the world literature. I sure hope you never pick up a copy of Crime and Punishment; between hacking a granny with an axe and a teenage prostitute, there’s enough to make your head spin. With all that said, I hope your book (and mine, ha!) do just as well as Meyer’s did.
Learning to be happy for someone who made their dreams come true in this difficult industry is a skill. I think quite a few bitter unpublished writers need it. Get over it. Work harder. Polish YOUR writing. Stop the gripe about the industry. Have you written something timeless and marvelous? Super. There is your reward.
I, for once, WANT there to be Twilights, and Hunger Games’ and all those titles you look down on. Because I happen to have varied taste, and while I’m finishing The Night Circus (audiobook I’m listening to in the car), I’m also reading Defending Jacob (a crime novel), and Anna Karenina. Last week? Last week I finished Thirteen Reasons Why, and Insurgent (the sequel in Divergent series). You are worried about books that sound like knock-offs? Again. Get over it. Even the story you are writing has been told before in one form or another. If you believe otherwise, you probably need to expand your library.
All the best. ;)
Your naivete is adorbs.
It’s also really cute that you’re comparing the social mores of Shakespeare’s era with the vacuity of modern YA.
I’m not even going to touch the whole implicit Shakes vs. SMeyer thing, because lol.
If a condescending rude remark is the best answer you can master, then it only supports my argument. Now, this is how civil people have a disagreement about literature: they actually spell out authors’ names, they don’t act superior to their opponent just because they disagree with the point, and they maintain a certain level of respect in their address. Maybe it is too much of me to expect of anyone who agrees with this post to have manners? On the point of Shakespeare vs. Meyer – I was not comparing quality of their language. Please reread. I was simply saying that I find in our culture we tend to “pretend” to have high morals vs. actually having them. Victoria Secret and half naked billboards are fine, but breastfeeding to feed a child is not. A character in Shakespeare’s play giving birth at 12 does not deserve our pity or attention, but an 18 year old adult making choices in a YA novel causes an outrage. I happen to disagree with this line of thinking.
Methinks the moralizing point has gotten a bit confused here. Do I care if there are YA novels about pregnant chicks, or drinking or drugs or any other clandestine subjects? No.
Do I care when 18-year-old characters, or hell, even underaged ones, make bad decisions? No.
Am I offended by books full of blood, death, killing, evil people, good people, borderline people, crazy people, and other offensive subjects? Hell no, that’s what makes a book good — CONFLICT.
Am I fucking pissed off when there is a plethora of books that feature female characters debasing themselves to teh menz in their lives, in which neither the author nor the characters nor most of the teenaged readers even take a step toward indicating that there is something potentially bad in this interaction? Fuck yes. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be books about this. Of course there should be. That shit happens in real life. I’m not even saying there should be no books like Twilight that feature vacuous main characters who skip off into the sunset with borderline verbally abusive asshat boyfriends. Fine, some people are into that. I would never want my teenaged daughter to read that and find the male main character hunky, but whatevs. I wouldn’t stop her from reading it, I’d just sit her down for a serious chat after.
I DO have a problem when there are SO FUCKING MANY OF THE SAME BOOK OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
So yeah. That’s my problem. I don’t want to censor the world. I want to rip the censor off and hear from someone with a new perspective for a fucking change.
Honey, it’s the internet. If you’re going to scold me for abbreviating author names, I think you’re going to find your online experience very frustrating in general.
Your posts display a rose-tinted optimism and naivete that tells me you’re very new to publishing. That’s fine. We were all there, once. But you’re making the neophyte’s mistake of coming in to school people who have far more experience than you. And that’s why you’re being mocked.
It’s all in good fun. Keep that optimism; it’ll spare your liver.
By the way, we’re on the same side of the fence regarding sexist undertones. Except I’m not taking issue with an 18-year-old woman choosing a mate; I’m taking issue with an 18-year-old woman choosing between two abusive, controlling love interests, who are romanticized in such a way that their behavior is not only legitimized, but portrayed as desirable.
We can and do teach the young what to expect and want in their sexual relationships. Twilight presents very unhealthy options.
Also, Arya makes a great point above: it’s not about wanting squeaky-clean morality in our books. It’s about the systematic representation of abusive relationships–and total lack of female agency–as normal and romantic.
Ahh, the good old days… I too, young padawan, remember this feeling of starry-eyed belief.
Perhaps you are right, and I am old and jaded. Doesn’t change the fact that publishing, on the whole, is in the tank, self-pubs are on the rise, the entire industry is changing, and many of my tried-and-true favorite houses are probably not going to survive the coming upheaval. Mostly because they adjust to change with all the pace of a concerned glacier…
I find it interesting that you assume we must be bitter unpublished authors. Do you think published authors don’t resent what their beloved industry of choice has become? Do you think industry professionals are incapable of screaming at the heavens as this genre that they’ve devoted their careers to goes down the shitter? If anything, there aren’t NEARLY enough dissenting voices in YA, which in my opinion is a huge reason people are afraid to take risks. Everyone who speaks out must just be a bitter unpublished author, right?
I’m not sure why would you say I assume. I try to be very careful with using strong statements in my own arguments. I quote, “Do I sound bitter? Well, I am.” (first sentence, next to last paragraph).
Oh, I’m not denying the bitter part. Why do you think we drink so much? :)
Just that, publishing has plenty more ways to embitter you than the occasional rejection letter. We run the gamut of publishing industry roles here, and I realize that when you’re unagented and unpublished, it’s easy to think, “If I can JUST sell my book, life will be beautiful!” Or, “If I can JUST land that internship at my favorite imprint, I’ll be living the dream!” When really, it’s only the first step into an eye-opening, soul-wringing, alcoholism-enabling shitstorm of herd mentality risk-aversive trend-chasing sadness and anorexic straight white-girl cover art.
Dunno about you, but I am SO TOTES PISSED that nobody wants to publish my book, A Short History of That Time I Threw My Editor Off A Balcony.
Timothy Cavendish stole my plot, btw, I plan to sue his ass.
Also, what Ian said. That, and: editorial board meetings are the quickest way to drive yourself straight to the top of the GW bridge. Dear lord.
Cloud Atlas reference! +1.
“Honey”? Again, what’s with condescending tone? Funny how you say “everyone is mocking you,..” You are wrong. Not everyone is mocking me. This has nothing to do with my experience, and much more so with someone’s poor manners.
I have no issues with people liking or disliking a book. I have no problem with people agreeing or disagreeing my naive, rosy outlook. I have no issues with you, or anyone else, really disliking a writer, their message, voice, or the a specific genre, or a group of books in general. The problem I have is with that exact word you used: mocking. What happened to the ability to disagree or comment with graceful, intelligent, respectful argument?
I have no idea whether big publishing houses will thrive, evolve, or fall apart in the next few years. That’s for someone else to debate. But it’s absurd to be insulted by the fact that they want to make money, and that they choose the path they take to achieve their goal. They are a business. The book you can’t stand made an excellent profit, so it was a good business decision, like it or not. So was The Night Circus, and The Help, and Divergent, and Horton Hatches an Egg. You might be unable to find good books on the shelves, but it sounds to me as if you are not looking enough, or only discuss the ones you didn’t like (notice, I didn’t say “bad book”, but rather “books you didn’t like”).
You are concerned about the young girls reading Twilight, and you think the tone of blog would feed a reader’s soul? You think tearing apart someone’s dreams and hard work (you are a writer, you know what finishing a manuscript means to someone, right?) with mockery and insults is fixing the system? Bringing light into the world? Well, we have a different outlook look. I’ll leave it at that, I’ll stick to my naivete you look down on, and I’ll wish you best of luck with you approach to life.
Where to begin?
1) You’re leveling personal insults at me, so expect them in return, *honey*. Yes, the diminutive is intentional.
2) You precluded any hope of civil discussion when you stepped in with your sanctimonious, now-see-here attitude in your very first post. Do you seriously think a blog like this is going to be receptive to your tsking and tutting?
3) You’re mad that we eviscerated books you like, so you chose to come in here and make a pretense of engaging us in civil dialogue, when in fact you’re just chastising. Why don’t YOU get over it? People like and dislike things. You’re allowed to like shitty books. We’re allowed to dislike them. We’re both free to express our opinions.
4) You wrote: “You might be unable to find good books on the shelves, but it sounds to me as if you are not looking enough, or only discuss the ones you didn’t like…”
Did you miss the huge banner at the top of the page?
5) You wrote: “You think tearing apart someone’s dreams and hard work (you are a writer, you know what finishing a manuscript means to someone, right?) with mockery and insults is fixing the system?”
No. We’re fixing the system by writing and being published, thus increasing the ratio of good to bad writing in the YA pool. This is our place to vent about the oodles of shit the industry churns out.
You are wrong about many things: if you read reviews on my blog you will see that I don’t love all YA books (there aren’t that many reviews up yet, but the only 2-star one belongs to a YA title) nor have I ever insulted you. I am not mad that you dislike books I enjoyed. “One does not dispute a person’s taste” was repeated much in my household when I was growing up, even if in a different language. It’s the manner in which you deliver the message is what I don’t like. To each their own, I guess.
You continue to talk down to me, which brings me to one point you were correct about (#3): I should not have expected anyone on this blog to hold on a civil discussion. My mistake.
So your problem with us is that you don’t like the way we’re expressing our opinions?