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The ULA Monday Report!
This week's report by G.D. McFETRIDGE
The Horror, the Horror-
Getting Published in America?
There are some among us who believe the golden era of
American literature began in the twenties and ended with the
sixties. Some claim book publishing was more idealistic during
the heyday, more broadminded and adventurous; a book was
something special, literature was art instead of mass-marketed
product; it asked profound questions, delved into the essence of
life, and, God forbid, might have contained challenging
substance. Imagine a writer the likes of Camus or Kerouac
trying to get a manuscript past the legions of literary
bureaucrats in today’s market.
Some years ago I cut out and saved a passage in an article in a
small magazine, a close-to-the-street sort of publication read
mostly by Berkeley malcontents. It went something like this:
American Literature is plummeting farther into a dark age,
dominated by big-name pulp fiction writers, genre oriented mass
production, and an East Coast literary establishment devolved
into an incestuous pool of industry insiders and pretty people. It
is an enterprise of good ol’ boy (and girl) literati who reveal an
unwavering appetite for narcissism, bookish self-masturbation,
philosophical pabulum, circular promotion and communal back
scratching.
When I read that, as a naïve and budding writer, I didn’t fully
comprehend what the woman was railing about, although I
instinctively liked her tone; she was rebellious, subversive and
finger pointing … it was Berkeley! Beyond that, her words were
a prophecy, a revelation of what I would eventually experience
for myself. Twenty years later my colorful though delusional
dreams of becoming a published novelist had dissolved into a
hefty pile of rejection slips.
Betty Davis once said that old age ain’t for sissies, and I say
neither is the plight of an unknown working-class writer. Allow
me to share what I have learned, what I’ve been through during
ten years of courting the attention of America’s publishing world.
In January 1997 I finished my first novel. Nine months later,
having completed the rewrite, I considered the possibility of
marketing the manuscript, so I bought a writers’ guide to
publishers and a couple self-help, how-to-get-your-novel-
published books.
The self-help crowd does their best to pump you up into believing
you have a realistic chance of achieving the goals they claim are
obtainable. And it all sounds exciting and wonderful, and it’s
easy to imagine yourself riding one of those legendary scenarios
where the puzzle pieces all fall magically into place. However,
for the innocent among us, let’s set the record straight:
Rocketing ascents into first time publishing deals are almost non-
existent, and even when they appear to be true, there’s plenty of
industry mythmaking and promotional palaver behind the
illusion. People love the Cinderella syndrome, and Madison
Avenue knows it.
Sure … once in a great while popular writers spring forth out of
nowhere, a bit like when a poor person wins the lottery. Writers
such as Hemingway, F. Scott, Capote, or even Erica Jong and
Ken Kesey all managed publishing deals at relatively young ages,
and eventually achieved various levels of status. Although this is
not something any rational person should dream about in any
capacity other than fantasy, unless you really have the inside
track. Granted, the little Korean woman who worked in the
garment industry for minimum wage for thirty years got lucky at
age fifty-three when she hit the ninety-seven million dollar New
York Lottery. But the odds of that miracle were about one in a
billion; and believe me, similar odds applied to people like
Hemingway. We’re talking about long-shot phenomena, and it’s
important to see the big picture for what it really is.
As a footnote of sorts, keep in mind that American culture loves
this idea of rags to riches, mythologizes it, but is it really true or
is it often the result of carefully planned propaganda?
In any case, let’s return to the bricks and mortar of getting
published. First, almost no major publisher, or even small
publisher for that matter, will initially look at a complete
manuscript. There are some who will accept a synopsis and a few
sample chapters, but a large percentage will not agree to
anything beyond an introductory query letter. Many other
publishers disallow all inquires or proposals whatsoever unless
they’re submitted by an established literary agent. And literary
agents are a nightmare in their own right, but we’ll get to that
later.
Eventually I learned the ropes and idiosyncrasies of the
publishing world. I made lists of big-name publishers that
seemed a good match for my novel and sent out dozens of queries,
synopses, and in some cases sample chapters. Within a month or
so, however, a steady flow of form-letter rejections rolled in, and
I had the funny feeling that nobody read the submissions. There
were no crumpled pages, no smudges or coffee-cup stains, not a
single handwritten comment—it was as if they’d shuffled the
queries from one envelop to another and sent them back with a
thanks but no thanks form rejection. Following a zero success
rate on my preliminary assault, I decided to retool my efforts.
“Got to think smaller,” I said, and began making lists of light to
middleweight publishers. Such companies seemed more open to
unestablished writers, and I figured I’d eventually work my way
up the ladder. Amazingly, after sending inquiries to twenty small
publishers, one assistant editor wrote back and enthusiastically
invited me to submit my completed work. I was, of course, elated
and put the manuscript in the mail the next day. Ten days later I
received a bubbling reply from the associate editor, accompanied
by an impressive publishing contract (six pages worth).
“Holy cow! They want to publish my novel!” I cried, and danced
around my living room.
But hang on, before you get as excited as I was, let’s cut to the
chase—this was my first lesson in vanity publishing, or what the
con artists have renamed “subsidy publishing,” a deal wherein
you, the writer, and they, the publisher, [supposedly] share the
cost of the undertaking.
What it really means is that they’re going to extract enough
money out of you, under a cleverly written piece of legalese, to
pay all the publishing expenses with a tidy profit leftover for
themselves, under the guise of spitting the cost of the venture
50/50. Most of the one thousand (or whatever number it happens
to be) paperbacks you contract for print will either end up in
your garage or the publisher’s dumpsite within a year or two.
Guaranteed. Because the bottom line is simple: without serious
promotion nothing sells in the literary marketplace.
Fortunately I saw through the fraud and declined the offer, but
the experience left a nasty taste in my mouth. It was becoming
clear that much like the automotive repair industry, sleazy
sharks and weasels inhabited the publishing world. Nonetheless,
I managed to sublimate my frustrations into writing a second
novel, and a couple years later I was determined to go after the
publishing world again. This time I would change my strategy
and get a literary agent.
Suffice to say, this endeavor turned out as discouraging and
rejection filled as my early attempts to find a publisher, and it
didn’t take long to realize that unestablished writers had very
little chance of impressing major-league literary agents. After
months of sending queries I became so frustrated by form
rejections, I started calling agents on the telephone. Which was
no easy trick, because there’s usually a hostile secretary
guarding the toll bridge to the yellow brick road; nonetheless,
through persistence and y talking to a host of agents, here’s a
generalized version of the message they gave me: “Mr.
McFetridge, in all honesty, I find the majority of my clients
through referrals … and what I mean is this, someone who knows
me has say how great your novel is, otherwise I’ll never read it.
And I almost never bother reading queries.”
I guess we could ask: Why bother with the pretense of open
submissions to begin with?
The real message is clear. The average big agent pulls new
clients out of the insiders’ pool, and the pool is not frequented by
the hoi polloi.
Yeah, right … the woman who wrote the Harry Potter books was
on welfare, then all of a sudden she’s a star and a billionaire, and
her agent tells a charming little tale about how at the end of a
long day he’s throwing a pile of submissions in the trash but
somehow hers catches his eye and he reads it and a star is born!
Like the little Korean woman who won the zillion-dollar lottery,
or like Elvis driving a truck before Colonel Parker discovered
him. Sure, it happens, but the chances are beyond astronomical.
In any case, moving forward in time, and after considerable
effort, I eventually signed deals with three different literary
agents. This may sound like a lofty step forward, quite an heady
accomplishment for a crybaby such as myself, but trust me, it was
yet another plunging sojourn into disillusionment.
The first deal was with an agent in San Diego. He sent a gold-
embossed representation contract and assured me that I had a
great novel, and he was going to work very hard to get me a
publishing deal; however, he needed 250 dollars for office
expenses. I was suspicious and investigated the request, and I
discovered it wasn’t uncommon for agents to charge office fees.
So I figured this fellow was on the level, signed the contract, and
sent him a check. That was the last I heard from my so-called
literary agent.
Six months later I finally cornered him on the telephone.
“Not to worry,” he said. “We’re sending out five manuscripts a
week.”
I believed him, mostly because I couldn’t imagine anybody being
low enough to lie in such a boldface fashion, but then another
three or four months went by and I still hadn’t heard anything,
so I phoned and asked what was going on. “Oh, we’re getting
good responses, I expect a deal within a few weeks,” he said, with
a truly genuine inflection.
Allow me to condense: At the end of the one-year contract I
hadn’t heard anything more from my agent, and so I hounded
him for days via telephone until he finally took my call.
“What the hell happened to those deals you said you were going
to get me?” I demanded.
“I can’t believe it, really bad luck—they all fell through,” he
said, with a sincerity indicating he actually believed his lie was
credible. We needed to convert my novel into a screenplay, he
said, and if I could come up with 20K, we could go into movie
production, or some equally ludicrous line of BS.
A dreamer I may be but an idiot I am not, so I told this con artist
if he didn’t account for how he allegedly spent my 250 bucks, I’d
take him to small-claims court. After I bird-dogged him
relentlessly for a week, he finally returned the money.
My next agent, a woman in Chicago, was honest and well
meaning, but she had no literary wherewithal or contacts, and
this became painfully obvious after reading several rejections
she’d received. She had no more influence among publishers
than I did. The rejections were unsigned form letters, and in one
particular case she had mistakenly submitted my novel to a
publisher who specialized solely in historical fiction, which had
nothing to do with my book.
A nice lady but totally out of the loop!
My third and last agent was a husband and wife team down in
Georgia, and they seemed to have a fairly solid record. I had
previously sent them several queries without success, but then
after I tried a new approach, they agreed to represent my second
novel. For two hundred dollars in copying and postage fees,
they’d happily send my manuscript to ten big publishers.
Unfortunately, much like my first outing, six months went by and
I didn’t hear squat diddly from my agents. When I phoned, the
wife seemed uneasy and evasive and I couldn’t get straight
answers from her about what had become of the ten submissions,
thus I started calling the list of publishers they had allegedly
contacted. Of the ten, only three had any record of receiving a
manuscript from my agents. I think you can imagine the rest of
this story.
Bottom line, for all you wannabe writers, there are different
varieties of agents out there, some are real, some fake, honest and
dishonest, lame versus experienced, and some who actually have
clout and connections and those who don’t know up from down.
Be advised, and don’t confuse one type with the other. After
these dismal experiences, I returned to self-representation.
One afternoon I was talking with Cheryl Weinstein, Associate
Editor (at the time) with Simon & Schuster. Over the previous
month, I had received a string of rejections from an assortment of
East Coast book publishers, and Ms Weinstein was the only
editor who’d bothered to return a personal rejection. The letter
included my name, the title of my novel, and a handwritten
signature. I telephoned Ms Weinstein to hopefully get feedback
on why she’d passed on my query, and to make personal contact,
but she didn’t remember my name, the title of my novel, or
anything else. “I process hundreds of queries a week,” she said,
offhandedly.
I explained my publishing frustrations, and she was kind enough
to listen, but I could tell her mind was elsewhere and she said
(paraphrased): You have to get an agent, Mr. McFetridge. All
queries and manuscripts sent sans agent go into a slush pile, and
sometimes at the end of the day they get swept aside. Do you
understand what I’m saying?
Apparently Simon & Schuster sent personal, polite rejections,
unlike their peers, but their policies were the same. If you’re not
hooked up in some form or fashion, you’re invisible.
Having failed on all fronts, the next move in my publishing quest
was to try literary magazines, the theory being that if I could
place a novel excerpt or a short story the big guys might take me
more seriously. Unfortunately, well-known literary magazines
are just about as impossible to break into as book publishers.
Here’s a scenario:
Imagine you’ve sent your best short story to one of America’s
most prestigious literary magazines, and you’re full of hope and
dreams because you’ve gotten pumped up by “how to” books on
being a successful short-story writer. Regrettably, up to a
thousand other writers have also submitted short stories that
month, and some of them are connected. The connected writers
sidestep the slush pile and their stories won’t undergo the
gauntlet of interns or undergrad readers, a gaggle of well-
meaning and dedicated youngsters who, unfortunately, often
times wouldn’t know the difference between great literature and
their favorite sitcom.
Only a handful of authors will make it to the final round—most
of whom will be connected, name writers—although in order to
maintain their delusions of literary egalitarianism the big lit-
mags will occasionally publish a token unknown writer, but it is
by far the exception and certainly not the rule. From the
weighty slush pile, they’ll pluck a couple manuscripts and give
them a free spin on the literary roulette wheel. But remember, if
you’re a nobody with a head full of dreams, your chances of
getting a break anywhere on the literary food chain are about
the same as the little Korean woman who won the lottery.
In other words, if you’re unconnected your chances of breaking
in are truly astronomical. The quality of your work matters, of
course, but it is not the deciding factor. When large sums of
money, or prestige and fame are involved, don’t be so naïve as to
believe that playing fields remain level. People in powerful and
influential positions make sure the fix is in, or at least they make
certain that the playing field has a good tilt on it. Like when
G. W. won the election back in 2000. Voting machine problems
in the state his brother was governor, and then a rightwing
supreme court sealed the fix? I mean, come on, as Salinger
would have said, “Jesus H. Christ!”
Economic and sociological stratification is not an accident. If
you look deeply enough, most the privileged and pretty people in
our culture are interconnected or bound together in some form
or fashion. It’s like one big club, and either you’re in or you’re
out, but most likely you’re out, because there’s only so much
room at the top; and do you really think that in matters of
privilege, position, and the good life, anything is left up to
chance? Think about it.
What has literature become in our great nation? Does it have
anything to do with real people and the elemental culture of this
country, does it have anything to do with the heart and soul of
America? Or is the world being manufactured and galvanized by
the needs and wants of the few, being made over and stamped in
the corporate imaging of America?
I read a bumper sticker last week. It said: I love my country,
but I fear my government. That hit me. Because that’s how I
feel, too, and it’s also how I feel about literature. I love literature
and art, I love Van Gogh and Jack Kerouac, Rimbaud, Woody
Guthrie, and even Hemingway, but I fear the literary
establishment and the fact that it seems to mirror the same illness
whose tentacles are strangling our government and civilization.
And to top it all off we get Britney Spears on the cover of Atlantic
Monthly? Are we really this bankrupt?
It was once said by a great philosopher that a people get the
government they deserve. In a parallel sense, maybe a culture
gets the literature it deserves—and this being the case, then the
only remedy to the current state of literary affairs is that
revolution must begin in the grass roots. If pabulum and
mediocrity is what the world wants, so be it, but what if at the
deepest level it’s a conspiracy of mediocrity? What if the
Emperor has no clothes? Who among us will step forward and
disbelieve the lies and act accordingly?
If someone as mediocre as good ol’ G.W. can be president, then I
see no reason why I shouldn’t be on the top of the bestseller list—
because apparently, if not obviously, the ultimate ranking
position in our great country has little to do with genuine ability.
And if of the thousands of books that are published each year,
only a small percentage ever sell, it seems to me that one of my
novels could easily qualify to be one of the non-sellers!
I wonder what was it like to be an aspiring writer during
Caligula’s rule?
Power to the people, I say … although forgive me for being trite.
===============================================
===============================================
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This week's report by G.D. McFETRIDGE
The Horror, the Horror-
Getting Published in America?
There are some among us who believe the golden era of
American literature began in the twenties and ended with the
sixties. Some claim book publishing was more idealistic during
the heyday, more broadminded and adventurous; a book was
something special, literature was art instead of mass-marketed
product; it asked profound questions, delved into the essence of
life, and, God forbid, might have contained challenging
substance. Imagine a writer the likes of Camus or Kerouac
trying to get a manuscript past the legions of literary
bureaucrats in today’s market.
Some years ago I cut out and saved a passage in an article in a
small magazine, a close-to-the-street sort of publication read
mostly by Berkeley malcontents. It went something like this:
American Literature is plummeting farther into a dark age,
dominated by big-name pulp fiction writers, genre oriented mass
production, and an East Coast literary establishment devolved
into an incestuous pool of industry insiders and pretty people. It
is an enterprise of good ol’ boy (and girl) literati who reveal an
unwavering appetite for narcissism, bookish self-masturbation,
philosophical pabulum, circular promotion and communal back
scratching.
When I read that, as a naïve and budding writer, I didn’t fully
comprehend what the woman was railing about, although I
instinctively liked her tone; she was rebellious, subversive and
finger pointing … it was Berkeley! Beyond that, her words were
a prophecy, a revelation of what I would eventually experience
for myself. Twenty years later my colorful though delusional
dreams of becoming a published novelist had dissolved into a
hefty pile of rejection slips.
Betty Davis once said that old age ain’t for sissies, and I say
neither is the plight of an unknown working-class writer. Allow
me to share what I have learned, what I’ve been through during
ten years of courting the attention of America’s publishing world.
In January 1997 I finished my first novel. Nine months later,
having completed the rewrite, I considered the possibility of
marketing the manuscript, so I bought a writers’ guide to
publishers and a couple self-help, how-to-get-your-novel-
published books.
The self-help crowd does their best to pump you up into believing
you have a realistic chance of achieving the goals they claim are
obtainable. And it all sounds exciting and wonderful, and it’s
easy to imagine yourself riding one of those legendary scenarios
where the puzzle pieces all fall magically into place. However,
for the innocent among us, let’s set the record straight:
Rocketing ascents into first time publishing deals are almost non-
existent, and even when they appear to be true, there’s plenty of
industry mythmaking and promotional palaver behind the
illusion. People love the Cinderella syndrome, and Madison
Avenue knows it.
Sure … once in a great while popular writers spring forth out of
nowhere, a bit like when a poor person wins the lottery. Writers
such as Hemingway, F. Scott, Capote, or even Erica Jong and
Ken Kesey all managed publishing deals at relatively young ages,
and eventually achieved various levels of status. Although this is
not something any rational person should dream about in any
capacity other than fantasy, unless you really have the inside
track. Granted, the little Korean woman who worked in the
garment industry for minimum wage for thirty years got lucky at
age fifty-three when she hit the ninety-seven million dollar New
York Lottery. But the odds of that miracle were about one in a
billion; and believe me, similar odds applied to people like
Hemingway. We’re talking about long-shot phenomena, and it’s
important to see the big picture for what it really is.
As a footnote of sorts, keep in mind that American culture loves
this idea of rags to riches, mythologizes it, but is it really true or
is it often the result of carefully planned propaganda?
In any case, let’s return to the bricks and mortar of getting
published. First, almost no major publisher, or even small
publisher for that matter, will initially look at a complete
manuscript. There are some who will accept a synopsis and a few
sample chapters, but a large percentage will not agree to
anything beyond an introductory query letter. Many other
publishers disallow all inquires or proposals whatsoever unless
they’re submitted by an established literary agent. And literary
agents are a nightmare in their own right, but we’ll get to that
later.
Eventually I learned the ropes and idiosyncrasies of the
publishing world. I made lists of big-name publishers that
seemed a good match for my novel and sent out dozens of queries,
synopses, and in some cases sample chapters. Within a month or
so, however, a steady flow of form-letter rejections rolled in, and
I had the funny feeling that nobody read the submissions. There
were no crumpled pages, no smudges or coffee-cup stains, not a
single handwritten comment—it was as if they’d shuffled the
queries from one envelop to another and sent them back with a
thanks but no thanks form rejection. Following a zero success
rate on my preliminary assault, I decided to retool my efforts.
“Got to think smaller,” I said, and began making lists of light to
middleweight publishers. Such companies seemed more open to
unestablished writers, and I figured I’d eventually work my way
up the ladder. Amazingly, after sending inquiries to twenty small
publishers, one assistant editor wrote back and enthusiastically
invited me to submit my completed work. I was, of course, elated
and put the manuscript in the mail the next day. Ten days later I
received a bubbling reply from the associate editor, accompanied
by an impressive publishing contract (six pages worth).
“Holy cow! They want to publish my novel!” I cried, and danced
around my living room.
But hang on, before you get as excited as I was, let’s cut to the
chase—this was my first lesson in vanity publishing, or what the
con artists have renamed “subsidy publishing,” a deal wherein
you, the writer, and they, the publisher, [supposedly] share the
cost of the undertaking.
What it really means is that they’re going to extract enough
money out of you, under a cleverly written piece of legalese, to
pay all the publishing expenses with a tidy profit leftover for
themselves, under the guise of spitting the cost of the venture
50/50. Most of the one thousand (or whatever number it happens
to be) paperbacks you contract for print will either end up in
your garage or the publisher’s dumpsite within a year or two.
Guaranteed. Because the bottom line is simple: without serious
promotion nothing sells in the literary marketplace.
Fortunately I saw through the fraud and declined the offer, but
the experience left a nasty taste in my mouth. It was becoming
clear that much like the automotive repair industry, sleazy
sharks and weasels inhabited the publishing world. Nonetheless,
I managed to sublimate my frustrations into writing a second
novel, and a couple years later I was determined to go after the
publishing world again. This time I would change my strategy
and get a literary agent.
Suffice to say, this endeavor turned out as discouraging and
rejection filled as my early attempts to find a publisher, and it
didn’t take long to realize that unestablished writers had very
little chance of impressing major-league literary agents. After
months of sending queries I became so frustrated by form
rejections, I started calling agents on the telephone. Which was
no easy trick, because there’s usually a hostile secretary
guarding the toll bridge to the yellow brick road; nonetheless,
through persistence and y talking to a host of agents, here’s a
generalized version of the message they gave me: “Mr.
McFetridge, in all honesty, I find the majority of my clients
through referrals … and what I mean is this, someone who knows
me has say how great your novel is, otherwise I’ll never read it.
And I almost never bother reading queries.”
I guess we could ask: Why bother with the pretense of open
submissions to begin with?
The real message is clear. The average big agent pulls new
clients out of the insiders’ pool, and the pool is not frequented by
the hoi polloi.
Yeah, right … the woman who wrote the Harry Potter books was
on welfare, then all of a sudden she’s a star and a billionaire, and
her agent tells a charming little tale about how at the end of a
long day he’s throwing a pile of submissions in the trash but
somehow hers catches his eye and he reads it and a star is born!
Like the little Korean woman who won the zillion-dollar lottery,
or like Elvis driving a truck before Colonel Parker discovered
him. Sure, it happens, but the chances are beyond astronomical.
In any case, moving forward in time, and after considerable
effort, I eventually signed deals with three different literary
agents. This may sound like a lofty step forward, quite an heady
accomplishment for a crybaby such as myself, but trust me, it was
yet another plunging sojourn into disillusionment.
The first deal was with an agent in San Diego. He sent a gold-
embossed representation contract and assured me that I had a
great novel, and he was going to work very hard to get me a
publishing deal; however, he needed 250 dollars for office
expenses. I was suspicious and investigated the request, and I
discovered it wasn’t uncommon for agents to charge office fees.
So I figured this fellow was on the level, signed the contract, and
sent him a check. That was the last I heard from my so-called
literary agent.
Six months later I finally cornered him on the telephone.
“Not to worry,” he said. “We’re sending out five manuscripts a
week.”
I believed him, mostly because I couldn’t imagine anybody being
low enough to lie in such a boldface fashion, but then another
three or four months went by and I still hadn’t heard anything,
so I phoned and asked what was going on. “Oh, we’re getting
good responses, I expect a deal within a few weeks,” he said, with
a truly genuine inflection.
Allow me to condense: At the end of the one-year contract I
hadn’t heard anything more from my agent, and so I hounded
him for days via telephone until he finally took my call.
“What the hell happened to those deals you said you were going
to get me?” I demanded.
“I can’t believe it, really bad luck—they all fell through,” he
said, with a sincerity indicating he actually believed his lie was
credible. We needed to convert my novel into a screenplay, he
said, and if I could come up with 20K, we could go into movie
production, or some equally ludicrous line of BS.
A dreamer I may be but an idiot I am not, so I told this con artist
if he didn’t account for how he allegedly spent my 250 bucks, I’d
take him to small-claims court. After I bird-dogged him
relentlessly for a week, he finally returned the money.
My next agent, a woman in Chicago, was honest and well
meaning, but she had no literary wherewithal or contacts, and
this became painfully obvious after reading several rejections
she’d received. She had no more influence among publishers
than I did. The rejections were unsigned form letters, and in one
particular case she had mistakenly submitted my novel to a
publisher who specialized solely in historical fiction, which had
nothing to do with my book.
A nice lady but totally out of the loop!
My third and last agent was a husband and wife team down in
Georgia, and they seemed to have a fairly solid record. I had
previously sent them several queries without success, but then
after I tried a new approach, they agreed to represent my second
novel. For two hundred dollars in copying and postage fees,
they’d happily send my manuscript to ten big publishers.
Unfortunately, much like my first outing, six months went by and
I didn’t hear squat diddly from my agents. When I phoned, the
wife seemed uneasy and evasive and I couldn’t get straight
answers from her about what had become of the ten submissions,
thus I started calling the list of publishers they had allegedly
contacted. Of the ten, only three had any record of receiving a
manuscript from my agents. I think you can imagine the rest of
this story.
Bottom line, for all you wannabe writers, there are different
varieties of agents out there, some are real, some fake, honest and
dishonest, lame versus experienced, and some who actually have
clout and connections and those who don’t know up from down.
Be advised, and don’t confuse one type with the other. After
these dismal experiences, I returned to self-representation.
One afternoon I was talking with Cheryl Weinstein, Associate
Editor (at the time) with Simon & Schuster. Over the previous
month, I had received a string of rejections from an assortment of
East Coast book publishers, and Ms Weinstein was the only
editor who’d bothered to return a personal rejection. The letter
included my name, the title of my novel, and a handwritten
signature. I telephoned Ms Weinstein to hopefully get feedback
on why she’d passed on my query, and to make personal contact,
but she didn’t remember my name, the title of my novel, or
anything else. “I process hundreds of queries a week,” she said,
offhandedly.
I explained my publishing frustrations, and she was kind enough
to listen, but I could tell her mind was elsewhere and she said
(paraphrased): You have to get an agent, Mr. McFetridge. All
queries and manuscripts sent sans agent go into a slush pile, and
sometimes at the end of the day they get swept aside. Do you
understand what I’m saying?
Apparently Simon & Schuster sent personal, polite rejections,
unlike their peers, but their policies were the same. If you’re not
hooked up in some form or fashion, you’re invisible.
Having failed on all fronts, the next move in my publishing quest
was to try literary magazines, the theory being that if I could
place a novel excerpt or a short story the big guys might take me
more seriously. Unfortunately, well-known literary magazines
are just about as impossible to break into as book publishers.
Here’s a scenario:
Imagine you’ve sent your best short story to one of America’s
most prestigious literary magazines, and you’re full of hope and
dreams because you’ve gotten pumped up by “how to” books on
being a successful short-story writer. Regrettably, up to a
thousand other writers have also submitted short stories that
month, and some of them are connected. The connected writers
sidestep the slush pile and their stories won’t undergo the
gauntlet of interns or undergrad readers, a gaggle of well-
meaning and dedicated youngsters who, unfortunately, often
times wouldn’t know the difference between great literature and
their favorite sitcom.
Only a handful of authors will make it to the final round—most
of whom will be connected, name writers—although in order to
maintain their delusions of literary egalitarianism the big lit-
mags will occasionally publish a token unknown writer, but it is
by far the exception and certainly not the rule. From the
weighty slush pile, they’ll pluck a couple manuscripts and give
them a free spin on the literary roulette wheel. But remember, if
you’re a nobody with a head full of dreams, your chances of
getting a break anywhere on the literary food chain are about
the same as the little Korean woman who won the lottery.
In other words, if you’re unconnected your chances of breaking
in are truly astronomical. The quality of your work matters, of
course, but it is not the deciding factor. When large sums of
money, or prestige and fame are involved, don’t be so naïve as to
believe that playing fields remain level. People in powerful and
influential positions make sure the fix is in, or at least they make
certain that the playing field has a good tilt on it. Like when
G. W. won the election back in 2000. Voting machine problems
in the state his brother was governor, and then a rightwing
supreme court sealed the fix? I mean, come on, as Salinger
would have said, “Jesus H. Christ!”
Economic and sociological stratification is not an accident. If
you look deeply enough, most the privileged and pretty people in
our culture are interconnected or bound together in some form
or fashion. It’s like one big club, and either you’re in or you’re
out, but most likely you’re out, because there’s only so much
room at the top; and do you really think that in matters of
privilege, position, and the good life, anything is left up to
chance? Think about it.
What has literature become in our great nation? Does it have
anything to do with real people and the elemental culture of this
country, does it have anything to do with the heart and soul of
America? Or is the world being manufactured and galvanized by
the needs and wants of the few, being made over and stamped in
the corporate imaging of America?
I read a bumper sticker last week. It said: I love my country,
but I fear my government. That hit me. Because that’s how I
feel, too, and it’s also how I feel about literature. I love literature
and art, I love Van Gogh and Jack Kerouac, Rimbaud, Woody
Guthrie, and even Hemingway, but I fear the literary
establishment and the fact that it seems to mirror the same illness
whose tentacles are strangling our government and civilization.
And to top it all off we get Britney Spears on the cover of Atlantic
Monthly? Are we really this bankrupt?
It was once said by a great philosopher that a people get the
government they deserve. In a parallel sense, maybe a culture
gets the literature it deserves—and this being the case, then the
only remedy to the current state of literary affairs is that
revolution must begin in the grass roots. If pabulum and
mediocrity is what the world wants, so be it, but what if at the
deepest level it’s a conspiracy of mediocrity? What if the
Emperor has no clothes? Who among us will step forward and
disbelieve the lies and act accordingly?
If someone as mediocre as good ol’ G.W. can be president, then I
see no reason why I shouldn’t be on the top of the bestseller list—
because apparently, if not obviously, the ultimate ranking
position in our great country has little to do with genuine ability.
And if of the thousands of books that are published each year,
only a small percentage ever sell, it seems to me that one of my
novels could easily qualify to be one of the non-sellers!
I wonder what was it like to be an aspiring writer during
Caligula’s rule?
Power to the people, I say … although forgive me for being trite.
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