Hard lemonade.
Sunday, February 26, 2012 at 3:26PM Years ago, a very dear friend shared some wisdom and wit in the form of a letter to the editor of The New York Times Magazine. The friend had not written the letter; but he tore out the page and shared it with me so that I would not get discouraged by the long road ahead of me as a commercially successful novelist.
Here is the gist of the letter, which had to do with the steps to publish a book: You write a proposal, which gets rejected by every literary agent you contact. So, you start a website and try to generate interest on your own. Eventually, an agent notices you, but publishers still aren't willing to take a risk until your national profile is elevated. You hire a publicist to help you with this, and finally secure a small--small--advance from a publisher. And then you spend all of the advance promoting your book anyway, because you're still too big a risk for the publisher to do it.
And that's for a nonfiction book, which is actually easier to publish than fiction. And when I say easier, I really mean less hard and not easy at all.
For some reason, though, we keep trying. I don't know why. Although I don't think new rejections or roadblocks actually hurt any less, I spend less time thinking about it each time; I bounce back faster. I suppose in the long term it will make me a better person. So if rejection is a lemon, I reckon that stronger personal armor is the resulting lemonade.
Doesn't make it any easier to swallow, though. Not really. It's still bitter as hell and makes my eyes all squinty.
Reader Comments (1)
Any chance you might post some time soon? I enjoy a good read while I'm rockin and rollin. ;-)