As a novelist, published quite successfully in an earlier era, I’m beyond saddened by this trend of woke editors and agencies. When you read the profiles of agents and the material they ask for, you will find quite explicitly exactly what’s described in this story.
In short, at a time when I’m writing the best fiction of my life, I can’t seem to break the bipoc, LBGTQ+ ceiling. Last three years I’ve been asking, “Who’s reading this stuff? Cannot possibly be a market for it.”
So I’m looking for ways to bypass the legacy agents. Don’t have the key yet, but I will find it. Meanwhile, sheesh. All that money thrown at junk.
I agree with you.
I know a best selling novelist in the UK who wrote a book with an angry, lesbian, vampire as the protagonist as a joke. Tor bought the book. Woke editors thought it was the best thing they’d ever read.
The woman who actually wrote the book thinks it’s funny. She laughed all the way to bank.
My kids are friends with a young lady who is some sort of tic toc influencer. She has a huge following and decided to write a young adult fantasy novel.
She self published as a print on demand book. My daughter is an editorial assistant for a publisher and proofread it as a freelance.
She told me had she known how well it would sell, she would have charged a whole lot more.
The book has done very well and the author now has a contract with a publisher for follow up books.
Nice success story for a 21 year old kid.
One thing my daughter told me is that authors need a strong social media presence to even get looked at by publishers. That certainly helped her friend.
You might look to the new model of publishing from Simon & Schuster. They bought out Callisto Media and absorbed them into their new division of hybrid publishing.
Callisto Media to Join Leading Independent Publisher Sourcebooks
https://global.penguinrandomhouse.com/announcements/callisto-media-to-join-leading-independent-publisher-sourcebooks/