1-800-BETS… ON?! How writing for publication is like gambling.

This post is about gambling.  But not the conventional type of gambling… there are no casinos or sports or races in this type of gambling (okay, well maybe you could call parts of it “racing”…!?).  THIS particular type of gambling refers to the gamble every individual who calls themselves a writer takes every time they send out something in the hopes of seeing it published somewhere.

And recently I have come to the determination that if a person wishes to succeed in any way as a writer – and by “succeed” I mean come out the other side without having your soul crushed – you MUST realize that the submission process is, pure and simply, a GAMBLE.  It is a game of numbers, a game of chance, a game that starts over new with each different submission.

As Curtis Sittenfeld said,

“People think publishing is a business, but it’s a casino.”

This single statement has done more for my mental health on writing matters than any other thing I’ve ever read.  Because even though I am brand-spanking-new to the actually-submitting-work field, and even though my scant few rejections so far haven’t done much to dampen my enthusiasm or determination, sometimes the mere thought of the odds, the seeming-randomness of the rejections and acceptances, not to mention the seeming-randomness of great best-seller hits coming out of nowhere or dismally low sales of epic works by famous career authors, and the stories of HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of rejections per single writer is suffocatingly overwhelming.

As much as it might suck, as James Scott Bell says in his BRILLIANT book The Art of War for Writers:

“There’s no guarantee of any return on our investment of time and effort.”

Novelist Jack Woodford gave the following advice to young writers in his 1940’s book How to Write for Money:

“So there you are.  A free-lance writer!  Oh pitiable wretch!  Oh miserable fool!  Of all the business you could have gone into – operating a movie theater, or making guns, running a drug store or learning how to be a tailor or a plumber, a typographer or a hot dog cook – you insist on going into the business of cash and carry prose.  Well, you know best.  As for me, I know there isn’t a so-and-so thing I can do to discourage you or make you change your mind.  I admit (reluctantly) I’ve made a pretty good thing out of it myself.  But I’ve had some breaks… Can you be sure of getting breaks?  Of course you can’t.  That’s what a break means – a stroke of luck that nobody expects, all pine for madly, and mighty few ever get.  Where would I have been without my breaks?  God knows.  I don’t!”

How you decide to handle and confront this game of numbers, I think, is what will decide your publishing chances and indeed, the fate of your entire writerly career.  The writers who didn’t give up, who kept playing the game, who kept wracking up those rejections, tell their stories now because they are published.  And many of them are published many times over, with lucrative careers as novelists and short story writers:

• Stephen King had a paper spike hung on his wall, upon which he speared all rejection letters.  Eventually he had so many that the spike ripped out of the wall.  (Carrie alone was rejected 30 times…*)
• Harry Potter was rejected 11 or so times (the numbers range from 9 to 12, but the point remains – it was rejected multiple times and is now a huge success…)
• Diary of Anne Frank rejected 16 times.*
• Dune by Frank Herbert rejected 23 times.*
• Watership Down and A Wrinkle in Time rejected 26 times each.*
• Author Jay Lake, with 30 novels and over 300 short stories, had 30 short stories published to a ratio of over 300 rejections.
• A friend of a friend has been submitting constantly for eight years, and it took a few of those years before he received his first acceptance of a short story. But look at him now! …

What does this tell you, as a writer who someday wishes to be published, or – gasp – even PAID for your writing?

It tells you that you have to play to win.

If you give up, if you stop submitting, you will never win.

But how!?!?! you might want to wail in true toddler-tantrum fashion… HOW exactly to keep up the motivation and the determination and the energy to keep writing, and keep writing, and keep writing, and submitting and submitting and submitting, despite the mountain of rejection letters and emails that are sure to pour back your way?

“So, what can you do about the guesswork?  Your job.  Which is the page in front of you.  Making it the best it can be.”  — James Scott Bell, The Art of War for Writers

You could also follow another friend of mine’s Secret to Success… find an arch-nemesis, lol.

But I think the most important aspect of all is to JUST.KEEP.WRITING.  Keep submitting.  Work on multiple projects at once, and always keep something out there waiting to be read by a potential market, even if it’s just a few poems or a flash fiction.  Poetry and flash fiction not your thing?  Make it your thing.  Write anything and everything.  Stretch your limits.  Step out of your comfort zone.

Keep rolling that dice, keep spinning that wheel.  Go all in.

Take each rejection and use it as a building block in your career.  Build a mountain of them, and then climb that mountain.  Don’t give up… never ever give up.  Eventually, you will reach the top, eventually, you will win.

BUT EVEN THEN… don’t rest!!!!

“What what what!?!?” some will say, “But I’m published now, I published something, anything, it’s all downhill from here!”

Um… no.

“All glory is fleeting.”   — George S. Patton

“If you get published, don’t rest and think you’ve got it made.”  — James Scott Bell

Even multi-published authors have been dropped by their publishing houses for low sales, or sometimes publishers, like other businesses, just go out of business and close their doors for good.

So what does this mean for us writers?  It means we will ALWAYS be uncertain of our writing future, whether we are just beginning to query and submit or whether we have published 30 novels.  It’s all a big, giant gamble.  Every poem, every novella and short story, every book – a giant gamble.  It could rocket to the top of the bestseller list or vanish into obscurity… we can all try to predict what will happen, but nobody knows for sure.  Crappy books sometimes sell like hotcakes, brilliant books are sometimes ignored.

I’m not just talking about traditional publishers or magazines and journals here, either… all of this still applies to self-published books.  You may not have to go through The Gatekeeper (aka, an editor or publishing house) to reach readers when you self-publish, but you still have no guarantee your work will be well-received, that you’ll make any decent amount of money off of it, or that your writing will be any source of reliable income for the future even if it is in the present.

I do believe that if you work very hard, consistently improve your craft, act like a professional, market yourself and your work, and know the importance of networking, you can significantly increase your chances of winning this gamble, and even win it regularly.

But you have to put forth the time and effort (and the cash, too).  You have to want it real bad.  Half-assing it won’t work here.  This is an all-or-nothing game.

For me personally, all I have to say in regards to this hot mess is …

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!!

***

“The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can’t help it.”
— Leo Rosten

***

Sources:

* Numbers borrowed from Daily Writing Tips.

This post includes general info gleaned from several books on the writing life and craft which has been put through my own personal interpretation and experience filter.  I highly recommend the following books for your learning pleasure:

The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell (Buy this one first!!!)
The Breakout Novelist by Donald Maas
No More Rejections by Alice Orr
179 Ways to Save a Novel by Peter Selgin
Write That Book Already! by Sam Berry and Kathi Kamen Goldmark
Book in a Month by Victoria Lynn Schmidt
On Writing by Stephen King