Wow. Pessimistic or Realistic?

Discussion in 'Agent Discussion' started by jannert, Mar 24, 2017.

  1. NigeTheHat

    NigeTheHat Contributor Contributor

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    As someone who in theory runs a business from his computer, I can absolutely guarantee this is what happens.
     
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  2. Tea@3

    Tea@3 Senior Member

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    In a nutshell, I wonder how much the 'dreaming of writing success' dynamic has actually changed since the advent of the 'new' era. (post digital/internet/piracy/pandorasBox explosion).

    I wonder if the differences between the eras are really only 'perceived' ones, or if they are actually authentically quite different.

    My perception has always been that if you wrote a quality book 25 years ago, someone would eventually offer you a deal. Maybe not a good deal, maybe a one-hit-wonder deal, but pay-dirt nonetheless. The gatekeepers (agents, editors) controlled the flow.

    But these days the gates are flung open. There are no barriers; anyone can publish anything anytime anywhere, good or bad, one or many. The slush pile of thirty years ago is in circulation now.

    They use the 'pebble in an ocean' analogy now, to describe writers' problem of discoverability. I wonder what analogy (by comparison) one could use for the writing world of, say, 1985 or 1975.

    But there's no use whining about it, I suppose. It can't be changed either way.

    --------------------------

    @BayView an executive summary of 'press pause play' could be: Effects of Digital Technology on Art. As democratization increases, visibility and quality drop. The doc deals with pros and cons of easily accessible tools of the trade, the rise of the amateur, and industry/business challenges resulting from the huge spike in the number of content creators over the past two decades. Oh, and the corresponding drop in value of creative material, due to said factors, and how piracy affects content creators.

    But a summary doesn't do it justice because IMO the anecdotes are what really hit home. Like the European band who worked two years on a new album, debuted it on spotify only to make $17.00 US in one year. (which they had to divide among the five members) <<stuff like that.
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2017
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  3. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    I watched this last night and it was excellent. It came out in 2011 so we found a couple of things that seemed a wee bit out of date, and it for sure focused more on music than other disciplines, but overall we really enjoyed it.
     
  4. joe sixpak

    joe sixpak Banned

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    25 years ago was the same as today. wannabees knew they could not get published and could not inflict their bleep on the world. so fewer of them tried to do it. but there were still big slush piles and many authors did NOT get published. back then there were higher standards by the trad pub houses who filtered out the bad books.

    digital and the internet has changed everything.
    it is a very long tailed phenomenon now.
    a few make millions, most make nothing, and a small number make a modest amount.

    artists, writers, photographers, musicians all face the same problem of getting their good work seen when there is so much more bad making it harder to even be noticed.


     
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  5. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    What's the name of the band, I'd like to look at their music.

    The problem with this anecdote is you are conflating earning money with being heard. First you need to be heard. It isn't for a while after that that you earn money when it comes to music. Think about the garage bands of the past. First they would get gigs at small venues. The better bands, usually those with great vocals to go with the music skill, would move up to better gigs and more money.

    So it's the same analogy. Everyone had a garage band. A few made a bit of money. Fewer still made a living, albeit not a good one. And very few every became rich an famous.

    Good books spread by word of mouth. If it's decent, you can make a little money and develop a readership. But if it's really good, it's not going to get lost in that ocean of new writers.

    It may seem that way, "How will my book get noticed?" The answer to that is, keep writing and keep getting better.
     
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  6. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    @Tea@3 I think the slushpiles from 30yrs ago would not be
    as bad as what is flooding the e-book market of today. :p

    Also there are plenty of traditionally published books that are
    bad. You can't say that you have never read a published book
    from a publisher that you are familiar with, has produced
    some bad stories. No one can say that, unless they are living
    on the moon.

    What about contract writers? Sure they sealed the deal by
    writing a good book, but after that they don't have to try
    as hard, because they have cemented themselves by proving
    that they can be good.
    Or big name writers that started out good, and slowly let
    the fact that their name sells whatever they write?

    I think there should be some level of consistency in an
    authors work. You would expect the same from any
    other product or service. Either you try to deliver the
    best damn thing you can, with room to improve and
    evolve. Or stagnate, or get lazy.

    When you want something better, you speak your mind.
    When others agree with you and follow suit, then things
    will change for the better. Quality over quantity.
     
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  7. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    This is the best case scenario, yes. But do you have any actual data or experience to prove that it's what happens?

    This comes down to different levels of "bad", I'd say. There are books that come out from big publishers that are not to my taste, absolutely. But I've never read one that's nearly as terrible as the worst of the self-published stuff. I'd think of it as two overlapping bell curves, with the peak of the big publishing curve way the hell further toward "good stuff" than the the peak of the self-publishing curve. And none of the big publishing stuff would be all the way to the "completely illegible and incomprehensible" end, which is more than I can say for the self-published stuff. (I'm not actually sure the self-published stuff would be a bell curve... maybe it would have a big bulge down at the people-just-slapped-a-cover-on-a-pile-of-shit end of things?)

    What's a contract writer?
     
  8. Tea@3

    Tea@3 Senior Member

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    I think he was referring to big names who had reached the point where they had five books to write in X number of years, then churned out uninspired material to fulfill the terms.

    But I may be wrong...
     
  9. Kingtype

    Kingtype Banned Contributor

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    I try not to be too pessimistic and do I guess hold myself to some expectations. I sometimes feel like while the internet has made it easier to get your stuff out there, it has also made it easier to get yourself discouraged about things.
     
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  10. joe sixpak

    joe sixpak Banned

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    the washpost reported on a good band that had toured usa and europe, had several cds, but was quitting

    the members could not make enough to support a family so they got real jobs

    imagine how much harder it is for the bad bands, unkn0wn, and wannabees to make any money even if they do get heard

    it is a VERY long tailed phenomenon now
    gaga and bieber make millions using 4pi approach with cd, merch, touring, and other projects
    some bands may cover expenses until they give up like the one in the washpost story
    but many bands will never make any money, and most will not be heard at all outside their garage


     
  11. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Close enough. Though it looks like one can get a multi-book contract
    with a publisher just in case they write a flop. So it can go either way.

    @BayView while true there are those that are not to taste, or illegible.
    There are some with some pretty glaring problems. Not everything
    has to be major, but is noticeable. Misspellings and sometimes double
    the or and are the most common that I have seen. For the major ones
    they are usually plot demands or plot holes. Both are pretty noticeable,
    and a professional product should be a bit more quality controlled and
    polished on such things. Though I guess a great story has merit, even with
    contrivance or with inconsistencies. At least according to the big boys in
    charge of what is and isn't good. All of these complaints can be lodged on
    both sides of publishing. Or what about novels that simply meander on
    for 100-200 pages in the middle, that is quite frustrating in my opinion.
    There is a difference between highs and lows, and having mountains
    and Marianas Trenches. It works in old books because that was the only
    form of entertainment, but not so well in modern books.
     
  12. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I find myself frustrated with writing style in a lot of books from big publishers, absolutely, but often these books are either best sellers or award winners, so clearly someone thinks they're good books.

    Honestly, book quality is pretty damn hard to judge, once the work is past a basic level of competence. And I'd say pretty much every book coming from a major publisher is past that level.

    Do you have any examples of books from major publishers that had, like, serious copy editing issues?
     
  13. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    That would take the better part of a month for me to pour through all of my books, and produce such evidence.

    To your first point about someone thought it was good. Well yes, but what qualifies them over
    the common reader? I have noticed when I started writing, that I have been a more critical reader.
    And I am very harsh on my own abilities as such, added to learning from all of you guys on here as
    well. So just because some random person says something is great, therefore it must be?
    Let alone a short sentence singing it's praises? Anyone can do that, but where it the critical analysis
    explaining how they came to that conclusion?

    When you read a book, do you simply go : "That was good/bad." And that's it? Or do you have reasons
    for why it was good/bad? As a writer to you break it down while considering your decisions about it?

    Critical analysis of it would be much more helpful than a yay or nay. Otherwise somebody is making
    extremely easy money for little to no effort.
     
  14. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    No, the fact that it was published by a major house indicates that someone thought it was good. The fact that it's a best seller or an award winner indicates that several or many someones felt it was good. But I might not agree with them.

    When I read a book I don't generally think of it on a good/bad scale at all. I think of it as an enjoyed/didn't enjoy, and, sure, I'd usually have reasons why I did or didn't enjoy it. But quite often my reasons for not enjoying something would be someone else's reasons for enjoying it. Like, I can't stand alphahole heroes in romance, but some readers apparently love them. So what ruins a book for me would make a book for someone else.

    I'm not sure about the person making easy money... I don't have an opinion until after I've bought the book, so...?
     
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  15. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I remember reading a book, one of the later books in a series, that read as if the copy editor might have jumped straight from raw manuscript to that often-suggested "read it backwards to catch spelling and punctuation issues without being distracted by the content" phase of copy editing.

    There were no spelling or punctuation issues, but it appeared that the editor had managed to be supremely undistracted by the content--there were things like the same character being referred to by slightly different names within one paragraph, characters who were in one location abruptly being in another without having moved, and then being back in the original location, and so on.

    That was a traditionally published book. However, I see it in an "exception proves the rule" sort of way, because it was the ONLY traditionally published book that I've ever encountered that had editing problems of that magnitude.
     
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  16. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    I agree. But having 'New York bestseller', glaringly trying to sway my thoughts to like something that I haven't had the chance to come to my own conclusions on.
    Save that for advertising it, don't put that shit on the cover, it has nothing to do with the book itself.
     
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  17. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I would say that the cover IS for advertising the book...
     
  18. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    @BayView ok, I am all out of ideas. Though I have to agree with you on that one.
    Time for a pint, and wondering how move my own piece forward. :)
     
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  19. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    That brought up something to think about. I don't know if 30 years is the right time frame, but back before everybody had a computer and the internet, I suspect a submission from an author to an agent (or even directly to a publishing house) didn't need to be quite as 'clean' as it does now. Obviously you wouldn't send them a MS with shit smeared all over it, but agents were more likely to forgive occasional 'mistakes' on a paper submission if they thought the story was good. And I suspect they read more than just the first line or two before rejection as well. They didn't expect to send the MS to the printer as is.

    I don't think it encouraged bad writing, but it did mean the initial presentation didn't need to be quite so professional as it is now. As there were FAR fewer wannabe writers out there, agents might have been freer to spot potentially good stories and work with the writers to bring them up to publishable standard. I've read books on the subject from years ago, and that seems to have been the case. It was harder to produce a book, full stop, so people who weren't prepared to make the effort didn't get there.

    In a way, it's a shame to have lost that 'difficulty.' But time has a way of smoothing over the bumps, so maybe the present flood of unprofessional dreck—that drains agents of the will to live, and swamps the self-pubbed market—will die back. Leaving the good stuff still standing?

    General standards of literacy were higher 30-40 years ago as well, but that's another story.
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2017
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  20. RikWriter

    RikWriter Member

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    That really wasn't the case. The quality of your book had less to do with it than you would think...it had much more to do with the tastes of the individual who picked up your manuscript at the publisher, their mood on that day, the needs of the company and a dozen other variables.
     
  21. Tea@3

    Tea@3 Senior Member

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    But in fairness I did say eventually. I wasn't implying the first time out or anything.
     
  22. 123456789

    123456789 Contributor Contributor

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    Thanks @jannert ...


    ...
    for killing my dreams!!!!
     
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  23. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    ...well, it's out of date and Australian ...might not apply ...might....not....:bigfrown:...:cry:
     
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  24. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Patpat. Good @jannert. Nice @jannert.
     
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  25. RikWriter

    RikWriter Member

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    Yeah, I understand, but I've heard multiple stories of authors who took years to get noticed, some of whom had to self-publish back in the day when doing that was hard and chancy and only got noticed by a fluke. One of them is a huge name now and has made millions creating an urban fantasy universe that multiple big name SFF writers are playing in now. You have to think that for every one that kept trying over and over till they got noticed and published, there are a lot who got discouraged and gave up, and at least some of them were talented.
    I can tell you from personal experience that I had a respectable literary agent back in the late 90s and she tried for something like 5 years to sell my two SF novels and didn't get a nibble. I got so discouraged I stopped writing for years. Then I put those two novels online on Amazon for Kindle in 2011 and sold 30,000 copies the first few months they were up. Since then, I've written six more novels and one of them was in the Amazon top 600 books sold and was a bestseller in its category for several weeks, so whether or not my writing is objectively good, it definitely sells. But back in the "good old days" of the gatekeepers, it wasn't good enough for them.
    Honestly, I'm probably making more money doing it this way than I would have through a publishing contract, so I have no complaints other than that I wish the opportunity had come along earlier...I wasted several years not seriously writing.
     
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