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.

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.

They don't. At all. Change the industry from publishing to mine, and I'm so right there with her, it hurts. Strip the published part from the writing in the first paragraph you quoted, and the words could have been mine. Writing has ruined reading for me.

And I guess it's hard not to see the eye-rolling as mean-spirited, even if that's not how it was intended, when I can so understand the feeling behind the words.

Yeah, that struck me as over the top too. And maybe my math is fucked up by the fact that I'm Brokey Brokerman and what she's complaining about seems like a lot of money for me right now...for something I'm compelled to, anyway. But I know there are expenses I don't see. And I personally am not fond of being "handled" either.

I'm sorta with Plei. And sorta with Betsy, too.

The way publishing is run? Sucks. It sucks salmon. That's something I've known forever - there's no glamour left in it, there are no Sylvia Beech-es out there in the 21st century with any chance at succeeding. Shit, I ought to know. I've got a bit of cred on the subject of having written a critically-acclaimed unpublicised book or three, and having it go nowehere except into cult status. I stopped writing for ten years after having the Lord High Muckymuck of American publishing tell me that, if Du Maurier was to submit "The House on the Strand" today, it wouldn't get picked up - not enough shelf appeal, too out of her "usual shtick".

My books are immeasurably better than Danielle Steele's, if not nearly so commercial. If we're taking about writing, I sympathise completely with Ms. Doe on this one.

But we're not. We're talking about publishing, and that's a business, and a particularly infuriating one. It's a business where your editor may adore your work yet fail to spend a penny on pushing it, except to send out ARCs to some reviewers. It's a business in which a publishing house can take out a $10K ad in the Sunday Times and then claim, with a straight face, that there's no connection between the ad and the fact that the Times suddenly agreed to review the publisher's pet project.

And this is where I lose it with Jane Doe. I'm not a huge fan of that level of starry-eyed naivete, and I don't think anyone ought to go into this business with their eyes scrunched up. And a huge advance? It's a loan from the publisher. One way or another, you get to pay it back.

So, anyway.

I have to weigh in with Betsy and Lyra Jane here. When I was buying romance, I was paying first-time authors sometimes as little as $3,000 advances for 100,000-word manuscripts they'd slaved over. And they were holding down full-time jobs, raising kids, trying to have lives, too. Eight years ago, that initial $150,000 advance would have been even more impressive than it would be today, and she got -- what? $80,000? -- for that last book. Yet I know plenty of genre authors (the same ones who were getting those crappy advances) who love what they write and, if not ecstatically happy with their advances, are more than willing to keep writing, and work their way up the ladder.

Mid-list authors do suffer -- I get that. There were dozens of novels I wanted to buy when I was acquiring (literary fiction, not romance) that I wasn't given the go-ahead for because they wouldn't earn out (and, to be completely truthful, because we were a very commerical house without the reputation for thoughtful or "important" fiction). And yeah, it sucks that books like that aren't what everyone's reading instead of the latest thriller. So I empathize with her on one level.

But the last paragraph, as Betsy pointed out, was what really got me. Everyone hopes for that call about the NYT list, but not everyone seems to think it's the only reason to write. Especially not those who "need" to write, who do it as naturally as breathing, no matter what the publishing prospects.

I'm not a huge fan of that level of starry-eyed naivete, and I don't think anyone ought to go into this business with their eyes scrunched up.

I'm not, either, which is why I think it's a good thing this article exists.

(To clarify, I think it's good to have out there a Cautionary Tale of the Next Big Thing, or Why Not to Believe Your Own Hype, because there are plenty of people who want to be writers that will never see the reality pill. I just have to look at the LJ friends list to see that this has opened a number of eyes. So it served its purpose.)

I figure it's stories or ransom notes...ooh, on topic and an Elmore Leonard reference. Score! Actually, I think that line is "What kind of writing pays the best?" "Ransom notes."