Okay, some of you wanted a thread about finding an agent with trad publishing in...well, the state it's in.
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Lili Saintcrowreplied to Lili Saintcrow last edited by
This means reputable agents are snowed under, new agents are awash, bad actors and grifters are having a field day, and to top it all off, trad publishing itself is (as I've said before) cutting its throat at the BookTok gaming tables as private equity hollows out its corporate structures.
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Lili Saintcrowreplied to Lili Saintcrow last edited by
If you're a new writer, it may seem hopeless. Let me tell you something.
I have 70+ titles in print, I hit my deadlines as a matter of course, I am midlist but a fair success. I make steady $$ for publishers. You'd think I'd have no trouble getting an agent, right?
Wrong.
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Lili Saintcrowreplied to Lili Saintcrow last edited by
Now, it could be that I've been vocal about problems in the industry and am seen as a troublemaker. It could also be that at my stage, I expect an agent and publishers who *do their damn jobs*, and that's seen as less ideal than a wet-behind-the-ears duckling who's easy to pluck/exploit.
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Lili Saintcrowreplied to Lili Saintcrow last edited by
My point is this: If trad publishing (still the thing most agents are focused on dealing with) has lost *even me*, if *even I* with my track record get ghosted by multiple agents, that says something:
IT'S NOT YOU. It is (by and large) not the writers' fault here.
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Lili Saintcrowreplied to Lili Saintcrow last edited by
Even if I were a much bigger troublemaker, I'm still enough of a proven workhorse that *someone* would want a 15% cut. New/middling writers, especially those unwilling to do performative bullshit on TikTok/Goodreads/wherever, have a much more difficult time.
Look, the whole industry is fucked.
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Lili Saintcrowreplied to Lili Saintcrow last edited by
Now, this is not to drain you of hope! When you *know* the game is rigged and the deck stacked, you can make more appropriate choices.
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Lili Saintcrowreplied to Lili Saintcrow last edited by
(To be exquisitely fair I am 100% the problem in my own career, since I am unwilling to put up with a lot of publishing bullshit. But the point still holds that I can make trad pubs and agents money, which is being left on the table because of the industry's *preference for exploitation*.)
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Michael W Lucas¹ :flan_mail:replied to Lili Saintcrow last edited by
I'm gonna argue with you here.
"To be exquisitely fair I am 100% the problem in my own career, since I am unwilling to put up with a lot of publishing bullshit."
Refusing to tolerate abuse does not make you the problem. Period.
Seriously.
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Lili Saintcrowreplied to Michael W Lucas¹ :flan_mail: last edited by
@mwl ...that's a good point. I just know that someone's gonna swan into my feed with, "but your writing isn't that good anyway" and felt the need to get ahead of it, I guess.
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Michael W Lucas¹ :flan_mail:replied to Lili Saintcrow last edited by
See, that's the glorious secret of our career. NOBODY is a good writer.
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Lili Saintcrowreplied to Michael W Lucas¹ :flan_mail: last edited by
@mwl We’re just too stubborn to know when to quit!
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Gergely Nagy 🐁replied to Lili Saintcrow last edited by
@lilithsaintcrow @mwl Please remain stubborn.
Thanks!
Signed: a similarly stubborn reader enjoying works of certain fedi-dwelling "not good" writers.