Getting published - statistically impossible?

Will Lavender said:

Excellent post.

As a writer, you can psyche yourself out. The agent! The agent's superiors! The editor! The editorial board! The marketing reps! The scouts! All, all of them conspiring against me!

Trust in your book. Trust in your talent. It CAN happen, and it does all the time.

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I totally agree. There are so many unquantifiable factors at play in this nutty business it is impossible to calculate odds. I am an oddsbeater - uncredentialed, unpublished, I havn't been writing for years and honing my craft, I didn't know anyone who knew someone to give me a leg up - but here I sit with a two book deal.

The one thing I always had was faith in the fact that I wrote a really good story. In truth, I believe there is an awful lot of being in the right place at the right time involved in this whole process. That's why I sent out a zillion queries - you never know what will blow wind up an agent's skirt on any given day. The agents are the gatekeepers, but when you land one, it's just another step in the long haul.

funidream said:

The agents are the gatekeepers, but when you land one, it's just another step in the long haul.

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Untrue for non-fiction, an aspiring writer should indeed contact certain publishers directly - for a varied number of widely recognized reasons.

scarletpeaches said:

But I'm too much of a control freak to surrender my writing prospects to chance.

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Given your "in control" tendencies, you'd be better off charting your own course, managing your project on your own per your own time schedule per your own objectives, and self-publishing your bookl That route truly keeps you in control during all stages - thereby bypassing all the waiting and thumb twiddling while passively awaiting any form of reply from an agent or publisher (all the while watching the weeks tick away).

I guess all I am trying to say is: there are no guarantees.

All you (you in the sense of "one") can do is your very best. Keep trying, don't give up - but then let go. There is no saying when, how, or even IF your book will find a home. Letting go is the only way to keep yourself sane and happy. If you cultivate a sense of entitlement (This is the greatest book ever and everyone says good books ALWAYS get published) then you will experience much distress.

I have learned to do my best, hope for the best, and then detach myself emotionally from my work. I think my latest is a good book. So does my agent. She too is doing her best. Great editors have it. I believe it would make a wonderful movie (I wrote it first as a script and on Done Deal forum a high reanking creative exec with a powerful company told me it's a fantsatic premise). But that is still all DREAMING. I can't nourish myself form dreaming!

So I am getting on with my life and at the same time letting life do what it will with my ms. It's out of my hands. No way I can "take control"! There is no control at this stage! It might never happen, and I have to deal with it, write more, and keep on my chosen course, emotionally, intellectually, creatively, and in every which way!

No matter what the quality of my ms out there, I have no guarantee that it will ever find a home. And it won't be the end of the world if it doesn't. I'm still glad I wrote it; I enjoyed the process, learned form it, grew from it, and I have no regrets. If it all comes to nothing, I have still not lost, but gained a great deal; because even in the process of letting go there is so much to learn.

And I think I have become a better writer. The next book will be better.

Here's an interesting quote from Kurt Vonnegut (I've abbreviated it somewhat):

There was a crazy seller's market for short stories in 1950...I got me an agent. If I sent him a story that didn't quite work...he would tell me how to fix it. With help like that, I...banked more money than a year's salary at GE.

Ah, those were the days!

You said it, Julie!

Odds, shmodds. I'm going to write, so I might as well try to get published.

Re:

The bottom line is: you are the one who should believe in your work; you should not relay on others to do that for you. Being rejected should not get you down, but it should help you realize your own inner strengths as a writer.

Never use the word "can't" or "won't" or even "maybe"-if you keep at it, despite all the rejections, and if you learn how to better your writing, you WILL get published, never mind the when.

Apryl