Keeping the faith
One of the hardest things for an unknown author to deal with is the lack of interest in their work. The traditional publishing industry is in crisis, and for a writer trying to break through it looks as if agents and editors have battened down the hatches and aren't letting anyone new on board the good ship publication.
But if you go digging into stories of famous rejections, you'll see it's always been so. Many of the books we consider classics today were originally self-published because no publisher would take them on. Perhaps the price of originality and a genuinely unique voice is to be ignored for decades.
In previous ages, we needed to be with publishers because they had the distribution systems that got books into bookshops. And bookshops were the only game in town.
Recently we've seen things working the other way round. Self-published books have become bestsellers, and then they've been picked up by publishers. Authors can publish an ebook, get a world wide following for it, then sell the paperback rights to a publisher who knocks at their door.
And bricks-and-mortar bookshops are under threat themselves and are no longer the only places to sell books. The internet has changed everything.
This makes it easier for the unknown writer to keep the faith. We can self-publish, get feedback on our work, and gain support for it. I've had three buyers of my books in the last few weeks come up to me and say they loved Panthera : Death Spiral, that it kept them up late at night turning the pages, and when was book two coming out.
But if you go digging into stories of famous rejections, you'll see it's always been so. Many of the books we consider classics today were originally self-published because no publisher would take them on. Perhaps the price of originality and a genuinely unique voice is to be ignored for decades.
In previous ages, we needed to be with publishers because they had the distribution systems that got books into bookshops. And bookshops were the only game in town.
Recently we've seen things working the other way round. Self-published books have become bestsellers, and then they've been picked up by publishers. Authors can publish an ebook, get a world wide following for it, then sell the paperback rights to a publisher who knocks at their door.
And bricks-and-mortar bookshops are under threat themselves and are no longer the only places to sell books. The internet has changed everything.
This makes it easier for the unknown writer to keep the faith. We can self-publish, get feedback on our work, and gain support for it. I've had three buyers of my books in the last few weeks come up to me and say they loved Panthera : Death Spiral, that it kept them up late at night turning the pages, and when was book two coming out.
These glimmers of brightness keep us going in the barren wilderness of rejections. They remind us that yes, we can write, and yes, somebody loves what we write. They help us to keep the faith when all around is darkness.
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