Dear Friends,
I am starting a blog in part because I want to put “blogger” on my resume, in part because I want to learn the ins and outs and benefits of blogging, but mainly because I have an interest in and a variety of perspectives about publishing and would like to start a conversation.
About me:
I have an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College. As a writer, I have had some success publishing curriculum books but still struggle with getting my fiction published. I have worked as an intern at Milkweed Editions–a nonprofit, literary press in Minnesota, as an editor at Lake Street Publishers–a start up curriculum publisher that never quite started up, and in marketing at Redleaf Press–a publisher of early childhood education materials where I also worked with foreign rights. I currently work part-time as the communications coordinator for the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council–a nonprofit funder of arts activities in the seven-county metropolitan area of MN. I still write and still try to get my work published. I am currently working on a couple of contracted projects for Enslow Publishers.
Now to start the conversation:
My father was very supportive of my writing and often told me I was a writer, especially when I would doubt myself. When we would talk about publishing, he would tell me that getting a book published was mainly luck. I flatly refused to believe this. ”Dad,” I would tell him, “when I write a book that’s good enough, it will get published.” I believed that getting published was mainly about writing skill. Believing that getting published rested on skill was very hard on the ego when the rejection letters came. But for me, believing it was luck, meant I had very little control and I chose to believe that getting my work published was in my power.
So which is it–luck or skill?
Of course it is both. We all know that. But is it more luck or more skill? And can we as a community of serious writers who have studied craft, reduce the elements of luck by working together and sharing what we know?
If you are interested in finding out, please join me and comment on this blog. Please always be respectful of editors. They work hard and their job involves a whole lot more than reading a pile of uncontracted manuscripts. Please be respectful of Publishing Houses. Remember, we want to be published by them.
BTW, I was rejected today, so it is a good time to start this blog. No sympathy is needed, but it is always welcome.
All Best,
Mara Miller
Mara,
You ask if getting published is more a matter of luck or of skill. Is it perhaps also useful to consider the importance of hard work?
Of course, this is not to imply that your recent rejection is the result of a lack of effort, but as I struggle to learn more about writing, I more often think that good books are the result of much work. After all, all the luck and skill in the world cannot sell the book that was never written.
I’m reminded of something I read somewhere. Something like, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
And so the attitude I think I will try to hold on to is simply never to give up. To think of each rejection letter as a trophy and a step up over the thousands of thousands of people who never even finished their book or tried for publication.
It’s by no means a perfect solution and it may not always count for much against the slings and arrows of rejection, but maybe the best anyone can ever do is simply to continue to work.
Comment by Trent Reedy — July 12, 2008 @ 9:49 pm |
Hi, Mara.
I’m not “a writer,” although I did once write a fabulous piece, “Why Baseball Is Art” which I submitted for publication to the baseball journal, “Elysian Fields Quarterly.” I was certain it would get published, but as you may have guessed by now, it was not. But I am also a musician, and spent about 20 years free-lancing somewhat actively.
So here’s where I stand on the luck / skill issue. I think that the most important thing by far is skill. Sure, I know there is a lot of bad art out there that gets attention because of a name or because of a connection, but there is also a lot of stuff that would never be noticed if it weren’t good. When I entered the field of symphony orchestra management back in the early 1970s, the first thing that everyone said about how to be successful was to make sure you have a good orchestra. It sounds obviously simplistic, but it’s really true. Without a good artistic product, you can’t sell tickets and you can’t raise money. So I think the same is true in publishing, and other art forms as well. Of course, it doesn’t mean EVERY good work of art will make it, but one’s luck improves immeasurably if the product is outstanding.
Comment by Jeff Prauer — July 14, 2008 @ 7:16 pm |
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