"Something is terribly broken in publishing right now"
In which I respond to an author frustrated with the querying process (or lack thereof).
Have you ever seen that episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” when Larry David gets what I will call a foreign body stuck in one of his tonsils? And then he spends the entire rest of the episode intermittently choking on it, hcch-hcch-hcching like a cat with a hairball?
Earlier in the week, I was re-watching that episode while scrolling on my phone when I saw this tweet:
Hcch, hcch, hcch: now it was my turn to choke on something. This tweet has been stuck in my throat like Larry David’s hairball ever since, snagged on all the sensitive tissue of my professional insecurity, longing, resentment, rage, and grief.
I’m hoping to dislodge this feeling by writing about it. I’m going to do so in the form of a letter to A.M., who was kind enough to give me that permission.1
Please know, however, that what follows is not really a letter to A.M., the individual. She was a stranger to me before this; I rarely represent projects in her focus area, which is children’s middle grade fiction; I don’t even know what the A and M stand for.
This is more of a general homily. I want to talk about why submissions are so hard for authors and agents alike—more and more so as the years go on. I want to offer an explanation of current high-level happenings in the industry. And as always, I want to beg, beg, that we all be all be kinder to one another. To the extent that it is possible to suck anxiety, anger, and overwhelm out of this system, it is only possible through communal care.
*
Dear A.M.,
Welcome to the company of people who’ve been psychologically damaged by book publishing!
I suppose I could be projecting here. On the surface, your tweet is an expression of resilience: it’s not me, it’s the system. But I’ve yet to meet a person who’s said “I’m DONE” about a longed-for dream or relationship and actually meant it, at least in terms of the emotional fallout. I’ve found that this is generally a thing people say at the beginning of a long, deep mourning process—or even a step before that, while still holding out hope.
I’m going to assume you’re hurting, therefore, and that some part of you still dreams of finding an agent and traditional book deal. I imagine you wondering whether perhaps you’ve missed some corner of this industry where people and timelines are reliable and sanity prevails.
Well, hope no more: the answer to that is no. No, there is no corner of this industry left where sanity or reliability prevail, except perhaps the accounts payable departments of major publishers.
Book publishing is—and for a long time has been—an industry that will psychologically murder you if you are a type-A person used to crisp deliverables. This is particularly true at all stages prior to publication—finding an agent, finding an editor, waiting for edits—but I’m afraid that even after pub day, the miserable uncertainty never fully (or even mostly) disappears.
You fret about sales. You fret about your next book. You fret about reviews or lack thereof. You wonder if and when you can ever relax about promo.
It never, ever, ever ends.