Blogocentric Formulations

This Just In - August 3

Letters: ‘All of Us Authors Are in It Together’  
Written as part of "This Just In..."   for "Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" 

I thought this was an interesting back and forth about the ongoing self-publishing versus traditional publishing debate. I'm always fascinated by people who think that a creative pursuit like writing is one-size-fits-all, and that there's a "right" and a "wrong" path to take in pursuit of one's publishing dreams. I also think it's a little bizarre that people can't seem to grasp the general idea of gatekeepers versus mass competition.

In her response to the comments posted here, the original article's author (Alana Semuels) writes, "But the reality is that the traditional model of publishing excludes many authors. Publishing houses accept a tiny fraction of the books pitched to them, and before Amazon, there was really nowhere for unpublished authors to go to get their books to a giant audience of readers. Many of the authors I interviewed for my story said traditional publishing houses had no interest in their work. I am not happy that the publishing industry is struggling, but I do think it could have taken a page from Amazon’s book and innovated some. Rather than just rejecting many of the works that come in, traditional publishing houses could have..."

This is a similar argument that many aspiring screenwriters make in the film and television industry. "Oh, if only there weren't these gatekeepers who refuse to read my stuff!" "Why can't they just give new voices a chance?" Blah blah blah.

First of all, whether people create their art as part of a traditional business structure like publishing houses or movie studios, or strike out on their own to create their art on their terms, there is no right or wrong. Do what you have to do. However, you have to be aware that both of those options have downsides.

If you're someone who's putting your work out there on your own, congratulations! There are no gatekeepers to tell you that you can't. But that also comes with the trade-off that every other person on the planet can do the same thing. You're not the only person self-publishing a book, or uploading a video to YouTube, or blogging on your website. And since you don't have a traditional, established business supporting you, there are issues of visibility. You have to stand out from the crowd to get noticed and become successful, and that's no easy feat.

If you're someone who's seeking a traditional publisher or a movie studio, they are gatekeepers, which means they're not going to buy just anything. It also means they're busy enough that they don't have the time to look at just anything. In most cases, these companies have a very meticulously curated process where they find agents, managers, executives, etc. they trust and focus on finding the majority of their creative works from those sources, while occasionally dipping a toe into the so-called "slush pile" to hopefully stumble across a new voice. But those slush piles are tall and time is scarce. Without spending an absurd amount of money to manage that process, you can't expect a professional company who's actually in the business of producing creative product, to spend all their time considering product.

In the entertainment industry, for example, screenplays take about 2 hours for a professional reader to read and write up coverage (an analysis sent from readers and assistants to executives letting them know the basic story and pros and cons of a script, as well as a recommendation about whether it's worth the executive's time to read). That's four scripts per eight hour work day, per person. That's 20 scripts per week, per person... assuming that person does nothing but read scripts all day. No assistant duties for their boss, no other responsibilities helping the business run... pure read-write up-and-repeat. Want to take a guess how many scripts a place like Disney or Warner Bros. gets a week? Over a hundred. And those are just the ones submitted by agents and managers from established writers. It's estimated that the Writers Guild of America registers over 50,000 screenplays a year. So we're really talking about a thousand scripts a week if these companies were to open the floodgates and consider anything anyone wanted to submit. At 20 scripts per person, that's 50 employees they would need to have reading full time. Even at, say $35,000 a year, that's $1,750,000 a year in salary a company would need to spend on readers alone to properly consider everything that's submitted to them. Which in turn raises the overhead they have to spend, which means they have less money to spend on the actual writers who have projects they like.

I know that kind of went off on a tangent there, but my basis argument is this... know that you have to choose the course of action that's right for you. Also, know that there is no such thing as an unimpeded rise to the top. Stop lamenting how the writing business doesn't work the way you think it should and accept that, with the advent of self-publishing, success now comes in two flavors... you can either continue along the traditional path of trying to impress gatekeepers who will (hopefully) deliver you to an established company that will put your work out and help you rise above the other rabble... or you can be more entrepreneurial by avoiding the gatekeepers and releasing stuff yourself, with the understanding that you have to find your own way to rise above the rabble.

If success as a writer were easy, everybody would be doing it. So go out there and find that success by whatever means necessary, and stop complaining about how "if only it worked differently." There are reasons why things work the way they do, and it's a far more productive use of your time to spend it figuring out how to succeed within that framework than railing against it.