The Devil’s Argument Against Publishing
And How to Ignore My Advice
If you write a story and never publish it,
you will have done a very good thing.
If your work stays in a box for you to cherish, if it is passed between you and your lover, shared among friends— you’ll have accomplished something quite wonderful.
By writing privately, you will have expressed yourself intimately, and communicated with exactly who you wanted to speak to in the first place. You have the primal satisfaction of an artist: your imagination fulfilled. You’ll confront the challenge to be authentic, to dream aloud, to take yourself over the falls and climb back out, soaking wet and ready for the next round.
By not publishing in the public world— the mediation of publishers, distributors, and retailers— you will remain unsullied and unembittered by the publishing process, which is not unlike being dragged naked inside a barrel filled with nails.
No one will put a price on you, no series of twits will be the final arbiters of your value. Your writing will not be lost in the shuffle, or ignored, or insulted. It won’t find itself in the hands of the indifferent and indignant. You won’t be told you’re a superstar, but neither will you ever be called a has-been, a one-shot wonder, or a fraud. You will not be betrayed by strangers.
When I read stories by unpublished writers that deeply affect me, I am torn. My first impulse is, “They are so incredible, they must be read by the rest of the world. How can I get their work in print?”
Yet the other side of me says, “They are so dignified in their publishing innocence, their uncompromised integrity. How can I seduce them to what I know is a miniature version of hell?”
My advice to unpublished writers is this:
There is nothing like the thrill of reaching new readers with your work, the people who resonate with your creative ideas and want to share their own inspirations with you. There is nothing like hearing a total stranger say, “Your story changed my life.” Some of those strangers will become your dear new friends, future collaborators, lovers, and comrades.
However, in order to reach those new friends, lovers, and comrades, you are going to have to go to “The Market.”
The Market is not your friend; The Market does not have your self-interest at heart. It can be an intoxicating place — the money changing hands, the competitions, the auctions, the promotions and premiums — but it isn’t a place that puts art first, or people first. It puts money first, and that requires a measure of illusion and exploitation that must be endured in order to reach your desired audience.
So how do you crack it? Or do you wish to?
The fans of The Market will snarl at you, “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen,” and it is best to take their words as helpful advice, rather than as an insult. There is no dishonor in being an artist who simply doesn’t want to get burned.
If you do go The Market route, you will, without exception, get burned, and so you have to be the sort of person who tolerates scarring.
I have looked over my publishing career many times, trying to weigh its consequences. I’ve met thousands of wonderful readers and fellow writers. I’ve been influential; my I’m-going-to-change-the-world tendencies have been powerfully stoked. I’ve supported my family with my writing, and I’ve also indulged in luxuries, the most delicious of which has simply been the fortune to not work a nine-to-five job. It’s been an ego trip par excellence; it’s been a cash cow; it’s been a dream come true; it’s been a revolution in my life as an artist and, in my case, as a political animal.
Those are the benefits The Market allowed me. It has never, ever given me the insight and pleasure I get from sitting down at my computer to write. That high is mine alone.
The Market has also crucified me, in the way that it is to all writers, whether famous, wealthy, or practically anonymous. I’ve submitted to people I don’t respect. I’ve agreed to compromises that made me sick and kept me awake nights. My work has been placed in the hands of people who were incompetent, frightened, and even malicious. I’ve lived on a financial roller coaster, with my heart in my mouth, and caused my family no end of worry. Bad reviews and unsparing personal criticisms are de rigeur, and so are stalkers and sycophants. My case is hardly unique. I’m traveling down a Roman highway.
The more well-known and successful an author becomes, the more they are a target of others’ envy and their own insecurity. Someday you will wake up understanding perfectly what they want, but not having a clue what you want. Your own personal insights may feel bleached and dovetailed into the desires of those you aim to please. Sometimes you will hate writing, and think you’d rather be boiled in oil than suffer another deadline, another contract, another publicity stunt. You will verge on complete misanthropy. Some of the indignities— the greatest ones— will be hidden from you and remain that way for years.
The professional writers’ philosophy, like the motto in academia, is “Publish or Perish.” Those of us who’ve survived years in publishing are masochistically proud, like war veterans, of our head wounds, our shaking hands, and our lack of a bath. For us, to have made contact with a new audience— to have made contact, period— was worth the Market’s trenches. We like to tell the story about how we nearly died, a hundred times over.
As much as I’d like to offer a toast about how I triumphed over The Market, how I made it dance my tune, I’d rather be candid for a moment: I admire writers who don’t publish. It’s not their craft or their content I speak of, but rather their dignity, their discretion, their complete control of their work.
Money Money Money
One of the most popular reasons to write, or at least to brag about it, is to make money.
The financial reality of selling one’s writing is different than the hype. Yes, there is an income to be made, but most of those incomes are fit for a mouse — few are fit for kings.
By far the easiest way to sell one’s writing is to be content with a small payment — something that makes you feel like a professional, but nothing that you would depend on for your monthly nut.
In this scenario, you would tell people without blinking that you are a writer, you would be able to show your published work, and you would have the satisfaction of purchasing nice meals and sentimental gifts with your wee checks.
You could even become quite famous and well respected in your genre, with a great deal more attention paid to you, than money. You might even go down in history as a great writer, but it won’t be because of your bank account.
There are 3 kinds of working writers: those who write for an auxiliary income, those who write full-time, and those who write for mammoth fortune and fame.
We shall examine the unvarnished truth, below.
If You Want to Make Some Money at Writing— Not a Full-time Livelihood
OUTPUT
You need to write and complete work often enough that you don’t completely drop out of sight — once or twice a year at a minimum.
TALENT
You need to have at least an occasional burst of talent — at least one good idea that you will be remembered for.
SKILL
You need friends or mentors to help get your professional act together. When you offer your work for sale, someone has to make it look good, in its presentation, in addition to its inherent quality.
AMBITION
You need enough ambition and ego investment in your work to make some phone calls — or else show up in person to ensure your writing sees the light of day in a fashion that you can be proud of. You need to have some people skills, or get someone else competent to front for you.
LUCK
You need luck, and you will inevitably have some.
But when you do have luck, you can’t kick it in the face — or turn your heel and think it will get better tomorrow.
You need to cultivate at least one good relationship in the publishing market, to help you get your work out, and if that one expires, you will need to replace it, or else you’ll suffer the same demise yourself.
PRUDENCE
You don’t have to be prudent financially at this stage, because you’re not relying on a writer’s income to sustain yourself.
ADVOCATES
You don’t need an agent, manager, tax accountant, or lawyer. You’re not investing your time in protecting your business interests, you’re solely interested in your creative investment. You can benefit by having loved ones who support you, who love to see you writing, and who give you their honest appraisals of your work.
If You Want to Make a Living at Writing, Year-In and Year-Out:
OUTPUT
You must be prolific. You must write and brainstorm on schedule, deadlines and goals, virtually every day of the week.
TALENT
You must have a gift and talent that consistently delivers. You must have oodles of ideas, and a very active imagination.
SKILL
You must master the professional tools and rules of the trade: reliable writing equipment, implacable editing and proofreading skills, the formats and courtesies of editorial correspondence.
AMBITION
You must be ambitious; you must be driven to get people’s attention at every level of the publishing chain: editing, marketing, sales, and publicity.
You must not only write, you need to enjoy talking about your work and thinking up ideas to promote it. You must meet your readers, your booksellers, the media, and the people involved in the production process. You must consider the marketing of your book to be as essential as writing it in the first place. You can’t risk slumps because of criticism or rejection. Your ambition may not be easily fatigued.
LUCK
You need good luck and fortuitous timing.
But, more important, you need the know-how and the disposition to take advantage of fortune each time it winks at you.
Everyone will get some luck, some time.
Most people will either blow it, or walk on by— as if it could be encountered any day of the week. Successful writers find it impossible to ignore a lucky situation. They can’t resist taking up a lead, even if it means ignoring other pressing business. They are invigorated by risk. Their blind faith in their talent is an asset.
PRUDENCE
Over time, commercially successful writers seek to cushion themselves from the volatility of the publishing market. You will have great stories that won’t sell, you will encounter production and distribution setbacks. Your work will be pre-empted by everything from natural disasters to political scandals.
In order not to go down in flames every time you hit a bump, you have to find a way to support your writing career, in bad times as well as good. That means avoiding debt; it means investments and insurance; it means diversifying your writing talent.
You have to be open to the idea of teaching, performing, consulting, editing, advertising, and working outside your favorite genre.
The greatest challenge: you’ll need to safeguard your health.
You must treat your physical ability to write as if it was a pair of million-dollar legs insured by Lloyds of London.
ADVOCATES
You need a Big Dog; in fact, you need a pack of big dogs. If you are writing as much as you need to be, you need an agent to sell your work and defend your business interests. You need someone to navigate the tax system for you. You need legal help from your agent or attorney to protect your copyrights and enforce your contracts. You need relationships with other writers, to promote and define your group interests.
You may find that you enjoy some of these advocacy activities yourself; but they are full-time professions, so at some point you will have to make up your mind ... do you want to be a writer, or a writer’s advocate? Whether you like advocates or hate them, you will be eaten alive by the publishing market if you do not enlist their help.
Finally, you need personal advocates — people who simply love you, no matter what, and believe in you at every turn. “Ain’t we got love!” may be the only music playing in your career some days, and you’ll be grateful for it.
How to Write a #1 Bestseller—
And Never Write Again if You Don’t Want To
OUTPUT
You need one killer idea. It has to be something you’re willing to live with as your legacy for the rest of your life.
TALENT
You don’t need to know how to write — at all. Your one killer idea is all that’s required.
However, you do have to recognize good writing, because if you don’t write your story, then you will be hiring someone, as a ghost writer, to do this part for you. They will need to have excellent writing skills, and you will need good chemistry with them so that your ideas can flourish under their hands.
SKILL
Again, craft is not required in this case — you’ll be contracting those duties out. But you will need excellent people skills — a genuine talent and charisma at getting people to notice you.
You need to look appealing, and especially to look good on TV. In fact, it’s much more important for you to look good in pictures rather than in real life. Your appearance, your style, your speaking voice will all play a starring role in your book’s promotion. Even if you thought you got off easy by not having to write the damn thing, you will work your ass off promoting it, for years to come.
AMBITION
Unsinkable is the key word here. You need to think beyond ambition — you must have destiny in mind, a sincere dose of narcissism, and an unstoppable need to prove something. People will say this is your fatal flaw, and, sadly, they may be right; but you won’t reach “overnight success” without it.
LUCK
You need a one-in-a-million chance.
Happily, you’re the kind of person who believes in perfect connections; you already think you’re lucky and deserve the best of fortune. You’re impatient to make it happen — you’re counting the minutes.
With this in your character, you will not be whiling away the hours in a small town, working on your embroidery. You move to the hot spots, you position yourself in the thick of it, you go out at night and you schmooze all day. You identify people with power in an instant, and you’re masterful at cultivating their acquaintance. You are a charming sonnuvabitch.
PRUDENCE
When it comes to money, you want it big, you want it all up front, and you treat it like capital, not pocket change. The lion’s share of your money goes into furthering your career and into diversified investments. Your attitude is not “I’m an artist,” but rather, “I’m a rising corporation.” You take your great book idea and turn it into a million other products and services.
If . . . you’re the sort of person who realizes you’d happily blow it all on hookers, cocaine, and ghost writers, then you buy yourself a gorgeous diamond leash and hand it to the most conservative person you know. Tell that guardian to put it around your pretty little neck and hold on tight.
ADVOCATES
In your kind of success, you don’t need a Big Dog, you need a Saber Tooth Tiger. Your business interests need protection and relentlessly aggressive advocacy. You find out who the best people are employing, and you employ them as well. You build a stone wall around you, and you don’t go crying to the press about how lonely it is at the top. You’ve built your gilded cage, and you learn how to sing a song you enjoy.
Your greatest challenge will be to retain a few friends, who knew you before you were rich and famous, who don’t need your money or notoriety to stay your pals. These are not advocates that you could employ, although many people might want to be your friends for a fee.
In this situation, your loyalty will become paramount in ways that are irrelevant to the publishing market. The Market doesn't reward faithfulness— whether it's New York, or Hollywood— but true friendship and love need loyalty to survive.
If you don’t have any friends or family who’ll stick by you when you’re “king of the world,” then you will, without a doubt, regret that you ever achieved this position. Think of your true friends often, and early, on your climb to the top.
No. Fuck It.
For those little piggies who don’t go to The Market, for writers who stay home, for artists who write what they want and swallow none of the garbage:
I salute you.
Stay the course.
Your creative spirit is second to none.
When you turn to your creative gifts, bask in the luxury of having never being deemed a commodity. You are shimmering. Touch your soft cheek!
The above Devil’s Argument is from my book, HTRDS. You may also listen to me narrate it.
thanks for writing this; great information and very welcoming and accessible; so many times I thought of Emily Dickinson's brilliance: liberation of baring one's soul without readers