Q and A edition: in which I say "...depends" more than the narrator of an actual adult diaper ad, BUT IT'S TRUE, MERYL

Publishing success, like late-life incontinence, is for the most part uncontrollable; the best we can do is move forward with self-acceptance, humor, and a layer of flexible, absorbent polyethylene.

L. asks: I finished a nonfiction proposal and sent it to multiple agents...and now I'm not sure what to think. One really liked it, and one cautioned me that it wouldn't sell. How do I know who's right, or (probably more realistically) at least know how to process all the differing information I might get?

First of all, L.: congratulations on getting enthusiastic agent feedback straight out of the gate. That’s yuge.

Sounds like you’ve also just taken your first trip through my industry’s psychoemotional uncertainty shredder. From this day forward, you are going to run through this shredder over and over and over again until you either die or run away screaming from book publishing forever. Yay! Welcome to what success feels like in this industry!

The shredder comes for us all on every single project. It comes for us all because when it comes to writing and publishing successful books, there are no right answers. Let me repeat: THERE ARE NO RIGHT ANSWERS, at least beyond such ham-handed basics as “make book coherent” and “make sure author write good.”

Beyond that, a priori, there are only educated guesses, instinct, and market precedent—precedent that, when viewed in the aggregate, reminds one that no one knows shit, really.