When I read biographies of famous creative
people I’m often amazed at the difficulty they had achieving fame and notoriety,
especially when they were so obviously talented and their work so superior.
If, like me, you
are incredibly talented you’re probably wondering, with all the poorly written novels
out there, why hasn’t your work of unmitigated genius been discovered and
thrust into the limelight for all to purchase and enjoy.
Here’s why. It’s
a very tight market. The print industry is dying and its employees are
scurrying for the lifeboats. The few who have retained their jobs are not going
to take any risks with a new and unproven author. Why? Because if they push to
publish your book and it goes nowhere, they are going to get called out on the
carpet to explain why.
And frankly,
they’d better have a damn good answer. They’ll need to explain to their
superiors why they thought the book would sell, why the cover would catch the
public’s eye, why it would fit in with the current popular genre and why they
believed you had enough personal appeal and charisma to sell several hundred
thousand copies right out of the gate.
Do you have oodles
of charm and charisma?
Me neither.
In fact, like me
you’re probably only an amazingly talented and skilled novelist.
Unfortunately nowadays
that ain’t enough. Not when Madonna’s notoriety can land her a very lucrative
contract to write children’s books. But then, one shouldn’t be surprised when
you consider how child friendly her act is.
And it’s not
like she’s isn’t already a best-selling author. Remember her book ‘SEX’ and how
she won over the illuminati by parading around nude? And it’s not like I wouldn’t
do the same thing for fame and fortune unfortunately whenever I parade around
nude men gag and women sandpaper their eyeballs.
But take heart.
Many amazingly talented people like us had their work routinely rejected only
to go on and stun the world. For example:
Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer’s Stone was rejected by a dozen publishers, until Bloomsbury a
small London publisher, only accepted it because the eight-year old daughter of
the CEO begged him to.
Really?
Harry-freakin-Potter?!
Hundreds of millions of copies sold throughout the world yet no one in
Britain’s renowned publishing circles saw any merit in JR Rowling’s
masterpiece? And the only reason this literary genius was published at all was
because a child wrangled her father into doing something he didn’t want to?
Here are some
other timeless works that were considered worthless.
The world-wide
best seller Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was turned down 121
times.
Margret
Mitchell’s classic Gone with the Wind was rejected 38 times before getting
published.
C.S. Lewis
received 800 rejection notices before selling a single piece of his work.
134 rejections
for Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen before they found a publisher for
Chicken Soup for the Soul
The BEATLES were
turned down by every recording label in Britain before the last one, EMI
begrudgingly signed them and assigned George Martin, who was producing comedy
albums at the time, to record them.
So apparently
ABSOLUTELY NO ONE IN THE PUBLISHING BUSINESS HAS ANY IDEA OF WHO OR WHAT WILL
SELL.
It’s simply a
crapshoot and either you catch a break or you don’t. However I will recommend
one thing. If you are lucky enough to catch that one break, make damn sure you
have your skills honed to their sharpest and more importantly, find a damn good
editor. One who will drive your mercilessly and force you to create your best
work.
When JK
Rowling’s final Potter novel was released I was stunned when I saw the critics
lining up to tear it apart. Here was an artist who had brought so much
entertainment to so many people yet, the only thing the book reviewers wanted was
to find some flaw in the book to exploit and criticize.
Scumbags.
Anyway, good
luck to my fellow authors out there. And remember, in order to compete in
today’s book marketplace you’re going to have to do something that will draw
attention to yourself like Madonna does.
Well, if that’s
what you got to do, then that’s what you got to do. As for me, I got my camera
ready.
You’ve been
warned!
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