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
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.