My anger is at the sense of entitlement -- she appears to feel that she has a right not only to write great books but to earn a living wage from them. Hundreds of great writers haven't. She talks about earning a day job the way that Alice Adams does -- as the ultimate degradation. And she says she can't write without the dream of making the New York Times bestseller list.

Don't get me wrong, I have that fantasy, too. But it isn't why I write, and I don't expect it as my due.

You see it as a pile-on, Plei? It's three people, and as far as we know she isn't reading this board.

I probably would have been more sympathetic towards her if her writing style hadn't bugged me so much.

I totally got something completely different from that.

What I took away was that someone who had, for a short period of time, seen the potential to actually do what she loved as a job, rather than to continue to work doing something that she wasn't especially happy or comfortable doing, only to see the potential give way to harsh reality *despite* relatively good reviews. Not only that, but to see herself losing the potential to be published, period. Not just the potential to be a NYT best seller.

You see it as a pile-on, Plei? It's three people, and as far as we know she isn't reading this board.

I guess my schadenfreude is broken today.

only to see the potential give way to harsh reality *despite* relatively good reviews.

But every serious writer I've talked to, every book on writing I've ever read, says in large capital letters that publishing is a crapshoot. Books that deserve to get noticed don't. Books that don't deserve attention hit the best-seller list. It isn't about virtue, it's about luck.

It does suck when good books lose out to...I don't know, Grisham.(Not that I haven't read one or two and been amused for an hour, but there's no meaning in it.)

But every serious writer I've talked to, every book on writing I've ever read, says in large capital letters that publishing is a crapshoot. Books that deserve to get noticed don't. Books that don't deserve attention hit the best-seller list. It isn't about virtue, it's about luck.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean they have to be happy about it.

I mean, I've heard basically the same thing, and the same frustrations, from every writer I've ever known. Details change, but the frustration's the same. I rarely, however, see it put out there for the masses.

I guess my schadenfreude is broken today.

Not really seeing the schadenfreude, either.

I'm not happy that her books didn't sell well. But I do think the essay she wrote about her books not selling well was poorly organized, poorly written, and failed to make me sympathetic toward her. I don't think saying that equals "ha ha, I'm glad she needs to get a day job."

But maybe my empathy is broken today.

Plei, I'm not gleeful because this woman can't make a living. I'm angry at paragraphs like this:

Being an author is the culmination of a lifelong dream. And -- because the sales of each book I write determine my ability to remain one -- being an author has ruined many of my greatest lifelong pleasures. Reading a book that's poorly written I pace the floor, beseeching the Muses, God and the editors of Publishers Weekly to explain why trash like this sells so much better than serious books like mine. Reading a book that's well written, I writhe, instead, with envy.

and this:

I count as my greatest loss of all: hope, the most toxic, precious thing any writer has. Without a writer's foolish fantasies -- envisioning Book 5 piled in stacks of 50 in every airport bookstore, its carefully chosen title appearing on the Times bestseller list, my agent calling with breathtakingly, indisputably, non-euphemistically good news -- how can I face the otherwise overwhelming prospect of a book waiting to be written?

If those don't rub you the wrong way, we have a difference of opinion. But don't accuse me of gloating over her misfortune.

From where I am now, still on the outside looking in, it's hard to feel overwhelmed by pity for someone who got a $150K advance on her first frickin' novel. Speaking as a genre writer who'll almost certainly have to bring several books out as successful paperbacks before anyone will think of giving me a hardcover deal, I'll be dancing in the streets if my first advance is as much as $10K.

(Note my willful optimism that I a) will be published, and b) will eventually hit the land of hardcovers.)

Where I do pity her is over the way the whole industry is dominated by a few very big, very corporate houses. It doesn't give you a lot of places to try to sell your work. I think I calculated that there are maybe 3-4 big publishers who might be willing to buy my completed manuscript, and I've already been rejected by one of them. There's maybe another 3-4 smaller publishers that might be worth trying if I go 0-for-4 in the bigs, but that's it. And while it varies by genre, I think that's fairly typical overall. But, that's the reality of the market, and I'm still starry-eyed enough to plan to give it my best shot anyway. I'm also realistic enough to not expect that all I have to do is sell that first book or two and be in for life, never having to worry about a day job again.