The man who turned rejection into a career

I would encourage the author to repeat the experiment with “Moby Dick”. I would not be shocked if the publisher was not familiar with it.

I’ve helped two people edit their books. For free. One took it to a published writer for further research and editing, its publication is still in question. The other published it through some small press, thankfully gave me no credit (as far as I know), I say ‘thankfully’ because my contribution was minor, and because it is New Age gibberish that I would prefer not to be associated with, and my editing had less to do with the meaning of the text, if there was any, than with the grammar and cliches within it. (Imitating a true professional hack, I kept my mouth shut working with this guy.)

I have no knowledge of the publishing industry. Back decades ago when I was in college and the world was more predictable, I recall being told that there were unpaid readers of the slush pile.

Genre is different, IMO. The readers are addicts. There is no way the established writers can fill the demand. Now that there is the Internet, there are fan fiction sites. These are almost uniformly terrible, but they do illustrate that the readers want more of their favorite characters and backgrounds.

Publishing on demand, especially to the eReader market, sort of fills the niche that the pulps filled, way back in the day. There are no more John Campbells to recognize a talent and nurture it. There is simply the craft fair model of doing ones passionate best and then offering it to the market.

As for the people in the industry, they are notorious for rejecting many writers who are, today, well-loved because someone took a chance on them.

As for the industry itself, I am told by people who have taken their work to agents that the demand is for series of at least three books and there is less chance of acceptance if there isn’t a back store (I don’t know the industry tern for unpublished sequels) available. I have also read that acceptance by a publisher carried with it demands to participate in the marketing that are way beyond those of the past. Writers are not usually salespeople, so this is obviously just another way to reduce the cost to the publisher.

The outlets for dead tree books are diminishing, as are the audience. I imagine that sometime in the next 20 years, the market for dead tree books will be similar to today’s demand for vinyl recordings: a small subset of afficianados willing to pay increased prices for an experience and process which they value beyond others who are acclimated to digital editions.

I’m not sure of your value to your employer because I don’t have access to the numbers. I probably have no experience at all in the genres you buy, as my own reading is typical of the genre addict and I rarely stray from my drug of choice. Just as early adapter foodies will pay for a novel experience within their own areas of taste preferences, genre addicts will take a chance for $4 or less to sample an indie writer via a digital reader. I will add that I read all the time about indies who hit it big in online publishing and are suddenly picked up by established publishers and then optioned by film producers.

So, it seems evident that even those within the established publishing and media industry take note of successful indies. They must realize that there is some value to the talent-finding abilities of Joe Blow.

The indie phenomenon is not limited to publishing. It is now standard in music, film and in craft markets, both the street and the juried trade variety. In every instance, it appears that the professionals became out of touch with the culture and the consumer and risk takers organized to fill the gap. Often, these gap fillers were originally just unsatisfied consumers.

The experience I do have is in the hand manufacturing, production crafts market. 30 years ago, I invented a product for an intense, if limited, market of about 10M that grows each year. For 18 months I sold it retail at street fairs. By the end of that period, I was approached by one catalog and several small retail shops and I was almost exclusively wholesale to every major distributor in the industry within another year. Every one of those distributors, including the initial catalog account, today is just a small part of a large conglomerate that is anchored by sewing machine manufacturers who control their market right down to the suppliers of pins,needles and thread.

With the exception of the initial account, every one of my present day accounts informed me at the outset that they were only adding my product because of customer demand. This begins with the individual consumer who pesters her local retailer who then advocates with the distributor. There is some degree of pride in knowing that it is the end user who influences the large companies to add and to retain my product. Interestingly, when one distributor slows down their ordering for whatever reason, I am inundated with individual requests for the product and the other distributors always show an increase in their orders to take up the slack. Over the past three decades, I have outlasted more buyers than I can count. The distributors themselves are bought and sold like any other commodity and still retain my product, all because some portion of 10M Jane Blows request it and will buy it from me if they cannot get it from a retailer, as the retailers will buy it from me if the distributors are out of stock. It is the product that is important, not whichever industry gatekeeper du jour decides to stock it.

BTW, this is not a consumable product. Some customers have over a dozen and keep buying more as gifts. I have individual customers who have been buying directly from me for 30 years. They buy multiples and every unit out there sells more in the future. I also do zero advertising and zero trade shows and haven’t had to since 1998.

I maintain that no industry can ignore its individual end user base and thrive.

I agree. My main source of income is education, not writing, but I find my history curriculum to be in demand from homeschoolers. The nice part is that all my contracts trade security for lack of restraints. My current employer is permitted free use of my curriculum while I teach there, and I am free to distribute the curriculum to anyone who wants it.

I could have sold an exclusive version of it for considerably more, but then I’d not have the options that I do. I think there is significant room to meet the demand for personalized education that is currently not being met. And again - it all comes down to the end user. I’ve worked for one of the big boys, Pearson, but I would be shocked to see them try to pick me up.

As for e-readers, everything that I do can be formatted well online. I really think this is the future of education. The one school room with 30 children in it is going to die and be replaced with some sort of online model and homeschooling where possible.

The advantages of this format are staggering.

As for the actual instruction, I’m pretty old school. I try to stay away from the gadgets while teaching as I find that they are a distraction and contribute nothing to the process. I go with the full lecture where I ought to be able to speak for several hours without consultation for notes. As a result my lesson plans are very different than most other teachers. As a way of distributing things - the internet is very good, but it’s not so great at the actual teaching process.

bkmk