It’s not just that both are extremely terrifying.
During the last stream, the subscribers voted that we talk about “how publishing is like dating.”
Watch the full video here or scroll down for highlights.
– So you’ve written your book! Hooray! It’s nice and polished and edited, so you might think that now it’s time to just fill out a few forms/e-mails for agents/publishers and soon enough you’ll be holding your book in hand.
– But that’s not how it works at all.
– Publishing is a lot like dating. You might be ready for a great relationship, but finding someone else ready to reciprocate those feelings is not easy at all.
Let’s take a look at four ways publishing and dating are eerily similar!
1. You have to put yourself out there and it sucks (FINDING a date)
- Unfortunately, you can’t get a date without some socializing, and you can’t publish a book without it either
- Submitting your manuscript to an agent is like asking someone out. You research them, find out what genres they like, write a query letter that’s tailored to them, then you propose that the two of you work together… and it likely won’t work out
- AND the agents’ rejection hurts just as badly as your crush’s rejection
- Having a support group is necessary for when you get rejected, like friends and family for date rejections, otherwise you risk burning out
- The only way to really make the misery of rejection go away is to try again with someone new
2. No chemistry = no publication (SECURING a date)
- In both dating and publishing, you can do all the right things, but it might not matter
- For dating, you can look good, have a nice job, a good apartment and social skills, but at the end of the day if something just doesn’t “click” between you and the other person, nothing will come of it
- For publishing, your book can have great characters, a fun plot, a deep world, and delicious prose, but at the end of the day if it doesn’t “click” between you and an agent, nothing will come of it
- While it’s definitely good to make sure you smell nice, have a job, and a place to live, you don’t need to go crazy. All you’re doing is minimally impacting your percentage points
- Same thing for publishing: make sure you don’t have any glaring errors, but what matters most is if your story clicks with an agent
- At the end of the day, all you can do is make sure your manuscript is the most attractive it can be, so that way when “the one” comes along, they won’t be turned off by it
- Even if the book has issues, as long as something clicks, you’re golden
- Examples: Twilight, Fifty Shades, Divergent, The Maze Runner, Ready Player One, etc. etc. etc.
- All those books have problems, but something clicked between them and the agent/publisher, so they were successful
3. You’re probably not going to get married (STAYING with a date)
- Even if you do get a partial/full manuscript request from an agent, or even if you do get offered representation by them, that doesn’t necessarily mean your book is going to be published
- From there, it’s up to the editors at publishing houses
- Your manuscript could easily be sent out to publishers, you hear nothing for months, and then you have to part ways with your agent — it happens quite often
- AND even if it DOES get published, you’re not necessarily going to get a million dollar advance from a big publisher, you’re far more likely to get a thousand or so dollars from a smaller publisher
- But that’s not a bad thing, just like it’s not bad to date someone who is 5’1 and makes $20,000 a year instead of someone who is 6’1 and makes $200,000 a year, the numbers have little to do with happiness
- It’s important to be realistic, in both dating and publishing
- At the end of the day, very few first relationships are perfect, and very few first publications are perfect too
- Seeing your first publication as the end-all-be-all-goal is like seeing your first relationship as the person you’re going to marry — it rarely happens
- Instead, it’s better to see both relationships and publishing as learning experiences. You learn a LOT from your first relationship, and you learn a LOT from your first publishing experience too.
4. No matter how bad you want it, it’s not just up to you (SUCCEEDING with a date)
- The vast majority of published books don’t earn out their advance
- You can do as much advertising as you want, but at the end of the day it’s not up to you, it’s up to readers whether or not your book is successful
- Just like date, publishing is a two-way street between the publisher/author and readers
- The only way for your book to become a bestseller is for someone who’s already popular to promote it, either on their own or on a popular website/magazine,
- And unfortunately you have no control over that
- Until that happens, you’re just screaming into the void
- You can feel powerless, but…
- …it all cycles back to the beginning
- You have to put yourself out there, do what you can, and hope for the best
(BONUS!!!) 5. Other people’s always look better than yours (relationship JEALOUSY)
- You may see other authors online talking about how much they love their agent, publisher, whatever, but remember, you’re just seeing a small fraction of their relationship
- Just like in real life, people don’t tend to post to mundane/miserable parts of their relationships
- You see the messy behind-the-scenes footage of your life, for others you only see the highlight reel
Be sure to check out the video for more details, as well as some great suggestions from chat about what you can do to not go crazy for each step along the way!
After that, chat voted that we write very short stories that started with these sentences: I could hear her breathing on the other end and She whispered venom.
Here’s what we came up with:
#1. I could hear her breathing on the other end. Not breathing in, but out. In our shared milkshake, she was blowing bubbles through the straw, turning the milky swamp between us into a bubbling pot of pus, poisoned with her saliva, as she giggled like it was funny. If this was how she was going to be, then it was time to end this madness before it even began. I stood up from our booth and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t be with a woman who desecrates dairy.”
#2. I could hear her breathing on the other end. I walked to the front side of the used car. She was leaning over the hood, mouth open, shining away the condensation from her breath with a cloth rag. I chuckled and told her I’d buy the car on the spot if she’d do that for me every week, and we both laughed, secure it was a joke. “Unless…” I added, then she stiffened in fear. I laughed again, reassuring her, but then just in case added, “Unless….”
#3. She whispered venom. The redness of her face showed that she was struggling to keep it silent, but that made it even deadlier. The groans and nose-holdings spread out from her like the epicenter of an earthquake, finally hitting the teacher at the front, causing the girl to run out of class in tears. I never saw her again, never thought of her again, until the “Venom” serial killer took their third victim from my seventh grade class… via deadly gas.
#4. She whispered venom. A liquid lullaby that pulsed along with her enemies’ own natural rhythm. An uninvited guest, she slipped inside, deposited her gift, then left as quickly as she came. No one ever thanked her. They merely bowed in her direction, mouth agape, offering their own naked blade with a metallic clang to the floor. She always refused them. In her purple gown, she felt far more civilized than her undressed brethren would ever be.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Pakutaso