We’ve talked about this some as it happened in comments, but this first post from Claire Holworth from earlier in the week tells a few more details. And some fantastic comments following about agents in this blog from Ted Mooney.

And remember, folks, this was a top, really top agent. Not a slush reader by any means. This is the problem with no regulation and letting someone else touch your money before you do.

There are NO rules anywhere in publishing that your check must be sent to your agent first.

Read Claire’s article here. (Go NOW before you read any more or none of the rest of this will make sense.)

Ted Mooney gave permission to respost a comment he made about the situation on a couple groups. It follows and is some great information about going alone with your books and his opinion on it.

Reposted with Author’s permission from LinkedIn/Books and Writers Group:
Ted Mooney • For my almost entirely negative experience regarding my sole literary agent, see Claire Howarth’s recent article in “The Daily Beast,” to be found here. I have been representing my most recent novel, “The Same River Twice” (Knopf 2010), entirely myself, with Gary Fisketjon as my editor, and not only have I had a much easier time seeing that things get done, but I also now know more about how Knopf works than almost anybody who actually is employed there, as the various departments do not communicate well with each other (true at any large publisher). As fewer and fewer agents are interested in anything but money, they make fewer and fewer of the phone calls necessary to be sure, for example, that the foreign rights are sold to the right houses, and so on. If you can possibly do without an agent (I simply got sick of the agents I was considering to replace my old one and submitted my MS to Gary myself), I would advised you to go solo. Only those writers just starting out and those who make millions every time they publish really need an agent, I’m coming to think. But I reserve the right to change my mind. Read Clare’s article, in any case; it’s almost unbelievable. In fact, though, she had to tone it *down* after consultation with legal counsel on both sides. It was all *much* worse.

Here’s Ted Mooney’s reply when asked  for permission to repost to writer’s groups:

Post with my blessings. Claire’s article elicited responses from as far away as India and brought still more information on the HW affair to light. The one thing I forgot to include in my earlier posting is that if you represent yourself you will end up doing a good deal more work than you would if you had an agent. That’s because agent these days rarely follow up on “small” things once the initial (big money) sale is completed. Of course there are always magnificent exceptions–agents who work tirelessly and out of belief in your work and in literature in general–but, tellingly, they rarely take on new clients because they are actually busy doing all the work involved in bringing a book into the world. More and more agents these days come out of a business administration background rather than a literary one and deploy their energies wherever they determine the most money can be made for the agency. Of course a lot of writers like to have agents because the agent will provide (often false) comfort in stressful situations, leaving the writer unaware that the phone calls that might have solved whatever problem is causing the stress were never made because they were deemed by the agent to be insufficiently remunerative. That’s why so many agents have too many clients; they want to have only the big payoff moments while avoiding the scut work. If you represent yourself, you will see how much of this scut work there is, and you will do it. Why? Because in the end no one cares as much about what happens to your book as you do. Period.

Okay, folks, normally Norman Spinrad and I don’t tend to see things the same. For my tastes, he complains a little too much, and I’m sure he doesn’t like me for varied reasons personal to him. But his current blog post is a very clear take on what many writers have been talking about with traditional publishing. Norman is calling it a death spiral, ordering to net, whatever.

He is spot on the money, and in his comments, he also addresses why he won’t just change names as many writers do and keep going. Pride, of course, a long career of course, but also overseas publishers in his current home country of France.

Note, he’s 70 and not writing under pen names, I’m 60 and writing under a bunch of pen names and doing just fine, not counting moving quickly to electronic publishing. We are two very, very different long-term professional writers. Keep that in mind.

Older experienced writers going into New York have it much, much harder after being around for a time, something we are talking about in comments on the last cows post. That’s a hard concept for many to realize and a topic of an upcoming Sacred Cows chapter. Norman talks some about this from the publishing side. Worth the read right here.

I thought for this chapter I’d talk about myths in general, why they are so strong, why they are often designed to stop writers. And give a study plan to help past some of them.

So far I have done 26 chapters in this book for a total word count of around 80,000 words, with each chapter focused on one area. It’s been great fun, even with the angry letters. And numbers of people have told me that I have helped them again find the fun and joy in writing. That’s fantastic. Thanks!

I really had no agenda when I started this series eleven months ago. I was just angry at the stupidity of the myths and how young professionals coming into this business had no second opinion or logical business voice. So that’s what I tried to be, a second opinion, even in my angry chapters.

To start off, let me give you a summary of what has already been done in this book. Suggestions for future chapters are welcome please. The finished ones are listed in the order I wrote them in.

Just click on the links to go right to the chapter if you would like to read them again. And make sure you read all the comments. Great discussions in the comments.

In fact, I want to take this moment once again to thank everyone for the great comments and Laura Resnick for her fantastic perspective and clear comments. If you haven’t read some of the topics and discussions below, feel free to comment on them after this post. Or after the post itself.

KILLING THE SACRED COWS OF PUBLISHING

(The chapters so far as of July 27, 2010)

—Speed.

—Rewriting

—Agents Sell Books

—Workshops

—Self-Promotion

—Book as Event

—Writing is Hard

—No Money in Writing Fiction

—Agents Know Markets

—Agent Agreements

—Agents Care About Writers First

—Agents Can Give Career Advice

—You Don’t Need to Keep Learning

—Agents and Your Money

—Your Agent Sells Your Book Overseas

—Follow the Rules to Get Published

—Writers Don’t Need to Practice

—Researching Fiction

—Asking Your Agent Permission

—Rejections

—Only 300 Writers Make a Living

—Talent is a Myth

—Agent and Contracts

—Only One Way

—The Agent 15% Myth

—Agents need to Take Care of Writers

Okay, that’s a bunch of reading. Now on to the topic at hand.

THE POWER OF THE MYTH

Over this last year I have gotten my share of angry letters from new writers telling me how I don’t understand them. I talked about that a few chapters back. And among other angry letters, I got one attack publicly from an editor too afraid to show her face. If a person isn’t willing to stand openly behind their opinions, they sure aren’t worth much in my view. Both the opinion and the person. I have very little respect for fear and cowardice as you can tell.

So why did the chapters of this book stir up so much discussion? Let me see if I can name a few surface reasons.

1) I am going against what just about everyone else is saying. What you hear at writer’s conventions, and from both editors and agents is often exactly opposite of what I am saying. But if this was the only reason, I would be ignored, not attacked.

2) My opinions are based in real business thinking. Combine that with the first reason and my chapters start that faint “feeling of worry” in writer’s minds that maybe, just maybe, I might be right in some places. How dare I question belief systems, but that nagging worry that I might be right makes them mad.

I’ve started or worked in many businesses and been trained in both architecture and law. I even owned my own publishing company for seven years. I love business and the publishing business. So many things I kept hearing as I came in made no sense to me. Now thirty years later they make even less sense. So all the chapters above are based in one way or another in logical business sense. Thus I am telling people that stupidity exists in the business they want to work in. That also makes people angry in defense.

3) Writers as a group want someone to take care of them. We feel we are powerless alone and thus when we come in we must be taken care of. But every one of my chapters in this project push the fact that writers must take responsibility for their own careers.

That’s scary, especially to the generation that came up in the 1980s and 1990s who were trained that they deserved everything they wanted. The “Entitlement Generation” as some have called it. My generation raised that generation, so it’s my generation’s fault I’m afraid. Of course now with this big crash, that “Entitlement Generation” is learning that maybe, just maybe, they aren’t entitled to everything they want and have to work harder than they wanted to get the basics.

We have a long ways to go as a culture to get out of this entitlement mindset. And when I tell a writer they really shouldn’t allow anyone to take care of them, but to learn their business and do it themselves, they get angry at me. It is just not how they were raised.

4) Anger comes from money discussions. In the generation of some of the biggest money scams in history, writers get angry at me when I tell them two things: First, never let anyone touch your money before you do. Second, you can make a living writing fiction. Both seem so logical when looked at common sense business practice and the facts of the money in this business, yet all the chapters I did on those topics got me the most angry letters.

THE REAL REASON THE MYTHS ARE SO POWERFUL

Besides the four major areas above, there is one very large human nature element that causes the myths of publishing to get to even sane people: We all want order.

And we are all trained to expect it. Every one of us, from moment one.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch has a wonderful analogy of how writers should act when writing. She says we need to revert back to our two-year-old selves. No rules, just pure joy and exploring. But when we were two, our parents kept putting rules on us. Don’t scream in restaurants, don’t run naked down the street, that sort of common sense thing.

Then we hit school and we were all put in rows, told where to go, when to show up, and what was required to move forward. And for twelve years of school and then on into college we were always told what to do that would move us forward.

Take these classes, get this degree, move on.

Very orderly. Mostly lock-step, sadly.

Then comes fiction writing. There is no school for fiction writers. Creative writing programs in universities are designed to crank out creative writing teachers. Not actual fiction writers. Yet all of us who want to be fiction writers need rules. We need someone to tell us the path to walk, where to sit, when to show up, and how to act. Maybe even what to wear.

But fiction writing does none of that.

Publishing is an international business that writers supply with product. It’s big business and it’s complex. And there is no set path to walk to get into it.

Is it any wonder a set of myths have built up around this business? For our entire lives we were trained to follow rules, then find ourselves in a business with no rules. And we think there should be, darn it.

Questions that challenge the RULES (MYTHS) of Publishing.

So, in the order of the chapters I wrote that are listed above, let me give you a few of the main questions asked in each chapter by people wanting rules and the thinking behind it.

Speed: “What do you mean that writing fast may be the best way to produce better product?” I always heard that writing slow was better.

Rewrite: “What do you mean I don’t have to rewrite unless I want to?” I always heard that rewriting was required, at least five drafts like I did in school.

Agents Sell Books. “What do you mean agents DON’T sell books?” Guidelines all say I can’t mail my own book to an editor.

Workshops: “What do you mean workshops can’t help me fix my story?” A dozen opinions of smarter people should always be better than just my own. RIGHT?

Self Promotion: “What do you mean that my ten book signings won’t help my New York publisher and might actually hurt my book?” I’ve always heard that you have to self-promote. That it is required.

And so on and so on through all 26 chapters so far. We all look for rules coming into this business because that’s the way we were trained.

Breaking that training is fantastically hard.

A Course of Study

So you want someone to tell you what to study? I can’t do that, because I don’t know each of you or your writing. Sorry. And if I tried, I’d be wrong. But I can give you a course of study on how to work against the myths every day and set up your own path into this business. Think of yourself as your own guidance counselor in college. Here is a suggested course of study.

1) Study regular business. Then any time any person in publishing suggests you go against a regular business principle, question it hard. For example: In regular business, anywhere, do you allow someone else outside of your boss to handle your paycheck? Or have a business where an accountant signs all your checks and you never see the money? Of course not! But that’s what you are doing with agents, folks. See all the agent chapters above.

2) Study how your own brain works. You know, the science of the brain. Understand how the creative brain functions, how critical brain functions, and then where your write from. Understand that your own voice will be invisible to you in your writing because it is the same as the voice in your head. Learn how your brain works because that’s where all this creative writing comes from. If you don’t understand how the brain works, you sure won’t understand why rewriting can be very damaging to your art.

3) Always go to writers to learn who are farther down the road than you are on a similar road you want to walk. Editors and agents can’t teach you how to be a writer. Ignore 99% of everything they say when it comes to how to write and how to manage your own business. And then ignore a lot of what writers ahead of you say as well, unless it makes sense TO YOU. Learn to listen to that little voice in the back of your head and question everything. But focus on continuing to learn from writers, both from books and writers’ workshops and conferences. Both craft and business.

4) Study the real lives of successful writers and their working methods. Ignore the hype like Hemingway telling writers they had to write standing up. But for example go find out how long it actually took Hemingway to write some of his classics, how long Dickens took to write some of his, and how long it takes many of our bestsellers to write their books today. Their public face will be one thing, but with some study, you can get behind the public story and to the truth. Every successful writer tells the truth about their methods once in a while.

5) Learn the true publishing business. Understand profit-and-loss statements, how editors actually buy a book today, what agents actually do in the system, what escalators are, what a good contract reversion clause is, and so on and so on. Yes, it’s a great deal to learn, but very possible if you learn it one detail at a time. Start now, with a hunger. It’s where you want to make your living, remember, and if you know more than others, you’ll know how to make more money than others.

6) Try everything once. At least. How do you know that your work isn’t selling because you keep rewriting it if you don’t try mailing out a first draft story or two? Call this course of study a lab class. Write fast, write slow, write a genre you don’t like. Try everything. Challenge yourself in every way you can think of. You might be startled to learn along the way what really works for you. Practice, practice, practice.

7) Stay up on current publishing and electronic changes. Even though a lot of writers and others are claiming the sky is falling and books as we know them are at the end, ignore that and just keep writing and learning. Your opportunity for a career might not be invented yet, or might be staring you in the face. This course could be called “current events.”

Okay, there you go, folks. A path, a course of study, seven simple areas, that will make you even more independent than you are now. I’ll bet your college counselor didn’t even boil it down that simply for you.

With knowledge comes understanding. Learn business, how your brain works, how publishing works, try it all, and stay current.

Okay, now that you have a course of study, here’s what’s ahead in this series so far. Again, I welcome suggestions.

I have shorter chapters on these upcoming myths:

—Bestsellers Can’t Write

—Writing Art

—Writing Media and Work for Hire or Romance is Actually Easy.

—Bestsellers Can Be Made Artificially by a Publisher

—Once you sell you have it made

—Rejections and What They Really Mean

—The Perfect Book.

—Publisher as Gatekeeper.

And, of course, more agent and money chapters to make people angry. Those are always fun and the agent myths just seem to be everywhere these days.

————————————————

Copyright 2010 Dean Wesley Smith
————————————————–
Because of the new world and technology, my magic bakery got a lot more valuable lately. This is now part of my inventory in my bakery. (Confused on that, read the Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing post about making money with writing.) I’m giving you this small slice as a sample. I’m giving you a taste, but not selling any of the pie.

If you feel this helped you in any way, toss a tip into the tip jar on the way out of the Magic Bakery.

And I would like to thank all the fine folks who have donated. Once this book is done, I will send you a copy. The donations and the comments both after the posts and privately are really keeping me going on this. Thanks!

If you can’t afford to donate, please feel free to pass this chapter along to others who might get some help from it. Every week or so I will be adding a new chapter on the myths and sacred cows of publishing. Stay tuned. Upcoming are chapters on bestsellers, losing control of your writing, having it made, speed equals making money, more on agents, and so much more. This business has a lot of myths. An entire book full.

Thanks, Dean

Okay, for those of you into a very complex but clear discussion about the current state of ebooks in publishing in the New York publishing world, and the history leading up to Wylie and other developments this week on this topic, read this post. Go slow. Worth the read.

It’s by Mike Shatzkin, one of the clear thinkers about the big picture in publishing. I don’t always agree with him, but his way of looking at things is clear and detailed.

Find it here.

Workshops finally all done here on the coast, writers sent home, my brain will return shortly and I will finish the next Cows chapter in the next day or so. But while you wait, try to digest that discussion linked above. The world of publishing is changing quickly, at this point almost weekly.

Konrath did an interesting look at the situation with super agent Wylie and his new move. I don’t agree with him in all areas, mostly in his thinking that publishers will fail, but it is interesting reading.

Find it here.

Michael Stackpole did a great post a short time ago about electronic publishing. Go read this because in many ways he sounds like me in his disgust for writers who want to be taken care of.

Great post Michael.  Folks, read it here.

Since the week of workshops and deadlines has me wrapped up more than I expected, not quite done with the next Sacred Cows.

Yesterday, Kris and I were getting a laugh from a great song by new artist Sara Bareilles called “King of Anything.” You can find it at iTunes right here. At least listen to the chorus. And listen to it with agents in mind. I’m fairly certain, not 100%, but fairly certain she was writing the song about a bad relationship. But wow does it fit a bad agent relationship PERFECTLY.

On another topic:

Two nights ago about 14 professional writers got together in a room and we had a five hour discussion on ebooks. Even though I was the leader of the discussion, I learned a bunch and came away buzzing yet again. I won’t begin to talk about all the stuff here. But just let me say it’s a great time to be a professional fiction writer. Sure, things are changing faster than many can keep up with, but that’s exciting and with many of the changes, the mess that the agent system has become slowly loses its grasp on the business.

Someone asked me if I see agents surviving the changes. I said “Sure, some of them. The ones that have a good business model, who don’t read slush, who give added value to their clients in sales and contacts, who understand their clients and don’t try to control them or take care of them or tell them what to write.”

But my belief is that the agent model that so many of my posts have focused on will be gone. The publishers will have taken back over the slush piles in one form or another, and new forms of agents will emerge.

Also a new form of scam agent will emerge, so caution folks. Get control of your money and except for education, money flows to the writer. Again, never let anyone touch your money first.

Will book publishing in paper form be around in twenty years? Of course. In fact, there will be more books being published in paper. But the publishers will have changed. A large number of small presses will be flourishing, combing electronic and paper publishing. Larger publishers will be following the same model, combining paper and electronic publishing. Mass market paperbacks will be a thing of the past in twenty years, trade paperbacks will be standard, with hardbacks still being premium books.

But major New York publishers have a pretty hard turning or tipping point coming with all their contracts, labor unions, high overhead, the return system, and warehouses and shipping costs. When books go to 25% electronic in sales, the weight of the costs of each paper book will drive the price point too high and force even more of an change. Some publishers already see this coming and are doing their best to move, but the union contracts, high overhead, and returns systems pretty much has the big publishers caught in a nasty trap.

This all is going to take time to work through the system and in this day of instant fear and communication, we’ll see a lot of “the sky is falling” stuff. But nothing is falling, it’s changing. And the changes are fantastic for writers.

Stay on top of it is my suggestion. Ignore doom and gloom and just watch and move with the system. Learn the business, expect no one to take care of you, and keep having fun.

Now yet another topic:

I just got a very sad phone call from a friend who lost a cat today. Made me very sad, since we have lost five cats and gave another away in the last year. Two went from just old age, great old ladies names Willow and The Goddess. We put down another from sickness named Ezri. She was a powerful cat. When we had the full compound up here, we were always rescuing cats. Ezri was the last non rescue cat we had. The three we have left inside are all rescues.

But we also had two outdoor cats up until a week or so ago. Yellow Kitty and Rufus. Yellow Kitty was a wild male I managed to pet after two years and Rufus was a neighbor’s cat who left them for us. Both slept on our front porch in shelters and would have nothing to do with coming inside. Of course feeding cats outside brings raccoons and I was close friends with two and their yearly kittens. This year mom had four kittens. The raccoons and cats were buddies and even would eat from the same bowl.

Then one day the hilltop was silent. Both cats and all raccoons were gone. Something had taken them all. No signs of any of them. No signs of life at all.

So this last year we have lost five cats. We’re down to the three inside. In this big house, often hours will go by and I don’t see a cat. I can’t imagine being without cats around, but wow it is tough when we lose them. And my friend this morning was very sad, as he should be.

So if you have cats, give them a hug, enjoy their company while they let you, because they will move on faster than you want them to.

Just starting a workshop tonight and have already ran into a couple of the writers attending around town this morning. It’s going to be great fun. Kris (aka Kris Nelscott, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Kris Rusch) and I are teaching a workshop on the structure of all the different types of mystery stories, from Cozy to Thriller and everything in the middle. A fun weekend with a bunch of fun writers talking writing. Doesn’t get better.

And then next weekend is a workshop on blurbs and pitches. First time we’ve done that one, so it could be really, really interesting and stressful.(grin)

However, the workshop that is the reason for this post is one in September called Character Voice. It’s an intense week of writing and study on character voice and all the ways it is created. We did this workshop earlier this spring and everyone attending made fantastic progress and say it changed their writing forever.

When your stories are bland and readers can’t tell your characters apart, you need to work on character voice. And it can be taught.

The publishing industry and reader demand is going to character voice as the most important aspect of writing. You want to see if I’m correct, just browse the books in any young adult section. They are all heavy character voice, and those readers will grow up to be adult readers wanting the same thing.

Editors are constantly saying they are looking for voice. Author voice you can’t see and only ruin with too much rewriting. It’s your personal voice. But character voice you can learn, alter from character to character. Good character voice thickens everything about your stories and makes them impossible to put down. It is possible to make your characters come alive and be memorable. There are some techniques that can be learned and practiced. And that’s what the week in September is about. Focused practice and learning how to do character voice.

We have three spots left in September 18-25 workshop. It will be limited to 12 since this is such a focused writing workshop. Kris and I just can’t read and give personal attention to more than that at this level of craft work.

If interested, e-mail me and put workshop in the subject line to avoid the spam filters.

I can’t begin to tell you how much that workshop, that week, will change your writing for the better.  But be prepared to work harder on your writing than you ever have before for one week. Those who attended in the spring said it was the most intense workshop we have given outside of the master class.

And for the workshops in 2011, the list is above under the workshops tab.

Cheers

Dean

I just received both the trade paper and hardcover book More Stories From The Twilight Zone.

I have a story in it, and I was in the first Stories From the Twilight Zone as well. And back in the early days I sold short stories to the Twilight Zone Magazine that ended up coming out in its sister magazine Night Cry Magazine.

My story is called “Dead Post Bumper” and its a favorite of mine because it is so perfectly “Twilight Zone.”

I have always written stories that fit that description and I love writing them. Part of the reason for that is the original program shaped a large part of my life as a young adult and how I look at the world to this day.

The list of 19 authors in this book is stunning. Kris is included and has a wonderful story that anchors the book. This is a book I’m very proud to be a part of. Go find it, read it. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed in this one.

The idea that writers need to be “taken care of” has become such a common phrase among agents, it has moved to being flat insulting for most of us out here.

I talked about this a little bit in another chapter, but lately I’ve been hearing this “justification” for frightening bad behavior on the part of agents. It just makes me angry, to be honest with you.

So for the second week in a row I’m writing a chapter of this book while angry and insulted. Stand back. If nothing else, this might be entertaining, as a number of people called my last chapter.

As I usually do in these chapters, let me start from some basics. And I’m going to number them to make sure I am very clear on my position.

Basic #1: Publishing is an international corporate business.

It is a business no matter how much you don’t want it to be, especially if you would like to have any decent number of readers for your work. Even writers who publish their own work are quickly learning just how much of a business this is.

And noticed I used the word “corporate.” Anyone who has worked in a large corporation understands the politics and the money-based drive that every employee deals with in corporations. Publishing is no different.

Basic #2: There are no secrets. It’s Just Business and Must Be Learned.

But as in any major profession, learning takes time. Mistakes are made. That is a natural part of the process. And it takes time to learn to write a professional level story.

As I have said over and over and over, when you want to be a local attorney, it takes seven years of school before you can even think of hanging out a shingle or going to work for a law firm. In a little local community. So why would you think that you need less learning, less training, less practice and time when working in an INTERNATIONAL business?

You need to learn the business you want to work in. It really is that simple.

(For a great free weekly business class, check out my wife, Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Freelancer’s Guide.)

Basic #3: Writers are always in a hurry.

Spend all that time and effort on your first novel and you want it published NOW. That’s like saying “I just spent all my time and energy getting through my first year of college, I passed English 101 and History 101 and I want to be an attorney NOW.” Doesn’t work that way and it’s just as silly thinking in writing.

First books are called first books because they are the first book a writer published, not wrote. My first book was book number four written, and I didn’t sell five or six.

Now I bet a bunch of people are saying “But I’m different.” No, you’re not. Write your million words of crap, as Mystery Grandmaster John D. McDonald said, and you might get to your first publishable word. And in the process, learn the business. You can learn to write and learn the business at the same time. Honest you can.

Am I sounding discouraging? I suppose. I am saying it takes work, it takes time, it takes a focus on learning. If that is discouraging to you, you don’t belong in this profession. Find a profession that the learning sounds like fun, the enjoyment is in the work, the desire to learn it all sounds like a wonderful time. That’s a profession for you.

But if writing sounds like fun, is enjoyable for you, and you have a vast desire to learn everything in both craft and business, then you are in the right spot.

Basic #4: Writers Control This Business.

I know that will just seem wrong for those of you lost in the myths, but the truth of the matter is that without books, without product supplied by writers, no publisher would remain in business. There wouldn’t be a business. This business exists for the sole reason to move writers’ stories to readers. That simple.

The top writers control what publishers do, stock prices of publishers rise and fall on book releases. I know of some writers who have taken their editors with them from one house to the next when they moved. And they weren’t even bestsellers

Writers make the most money, writers control.

Where the Myth of Needing to Taken Care Of Comes From.

In short, the myth comes from writers who are in a hurry and lazy and think they are “artists.” That’s right, we writers (as a group) caused this myth, as we do with most of the myths.

The big international business of writing looks “scary” and unknown, a long, dark road we are afraid to walk. Imagine a women in a bad horror movie in high heals going into a cobweb-covered mansion. That’s what it feels like to all of us, thus we do what is human nature, we try to find someone who claims they will take us through the darkness and dangerous animals and guys with large axes and chainsaws safely to the other side. We willingly and without thought hand these “guide” people all our money, our very livelihood, our art, our self-respect, and then close our eyes and hope.

Just like in the bad movies, it seldom works. Just ask any of Bernie Madoff’s clients how well handing over all your money works.

But sadly, in publishing, it’s normal to do just what I am describing. Except the people we hand all our money to are often young agents. Very, very young, and not regulated in any way. Many of them are four or five years out of an Ivy League school, and their only claim to knowing anything is that they live with a few others in New York City and know other agents and have lunches with a few editors.

Now granted, some agents have been around for a long time, know the business, can get a book in at higher levels. But they are not writers. They do not understand at any deep level what you do as a writer. Or how you survive. So you start expecting them to take care of everything and guess what? Mistakes happen, only they are not your mistakes.

And then all the horror stories we have been talking about in all the comments after previous agent chapters happen.

The bottom line is that all the agent horror stories happen because WRITERS WANT TO BE TAKEN CARE OF.

Somehow along the way I lost this attitude, more than likely during my publishing days with Pulphouse. Or even more likely, I never had it from the start. It just seems odd to me that anyone SHOULD take care of me. I’ve been on my own, making my own way in the world since I turned eighteen. No one took care of me, and I sure didn’t expect anyone to do so. In any business or venture over all the decades.

My first agent never said she would take care of me. Not once. I sold my own books, called her and told her who would be calling and what I wanted and she did what I asked. I was in charge. I hired her for her agency and help on chasing money and nothing more.

So now comes the 2010 publishing world. We have reached a day in this business where young agents are reading slush and losing money, where the publishing business is going through one of its normal tightening phases, where new technology is slamming into publishing like an iceberg ramming into the Titanic. Exciting times, actually, for writers, with new opportunities opening up almost every day.

But one of the upshots of this new world is that these baby agents and some young editors are out spouting off about how they need to take care of their writers. And they are spouting this garbage in public.

They started off doing this, I’m sure, to try to sell themselves to writers. But then they started to believe their own hype, they started to actually believe that they knew better than writers what writers needed.

And over the last ten years, this has become, to my view, an ugly trend that I have even heard directed at me.

Some young agent who wasn’t born yet when I sold my first short story told me last year that if I went with her as a client, she would take care of me. Of course, she would have to read and approve everything I wrote before she sent it out.

She was SERIOUS!!!

The attitude of needing to take care of writers had become so ingrained in her mind that the system just worked that way for everyone. She didn’t know any other way. She somehow thought in her deepest ego that she was giving me something I wanted to hear.

I managed not to laugh in her face, or insult her, but to be honest, that has bothered me ever since and I have mentioned it a few times lately. I should have taken her to task, maybe snapped her out of it a little bit. But I was nice, stunned, to be honest.

She believed that she should take care of a seasoned professional and even worse, she believed that I needed to be taken care of by her.

In other words, she thought I was too stupid to make it on my own.

Oh, yeah, let’s forget the last twenty years or more where I did just fine taking care of myself and making nice money writing fiction. She believed I was too stupid to make it on my own.

Yes, I was insulted.

Let me make this clear, very clear about this myth.

Every time an agent or an editor says that they will “take care of you,” they are saying to you:

“You are too stupid to make it on your own.”

Insulted? Yeah, you should be. But what stuns me even more is that writers just nod and say, “Yup, I’m dumb-dumb and must be bottle fed…change my diapers please while you are at it.”

Writers let agents get away with this insulting behavior. Until this post, I’ve never heard anyone question this at all.

Well, as I said last chapter, it’s time for writers to wake up and question everything.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

1) Understand you are learning the business and that the learning never stops.

I’m still learning this business every day, year after year. I find learning exciting and I love that I will never stop learning in this business, both on the writing craft side and on the business side. Sure, it’s scary at times. That’s part of the fun.

2) Don’t be afraid of making mistakes.

No way to not make mistakes, but for heaven’s sake, make your own mistakes, and from those mistakes come learning and understanding. In publishing, nothing is fatal. Worse thing that happens is you change your pen name and move on.

3) Learn from those who are down the road you want to walk.

Other writers have walked ahead of you down the scary, fog-covered road to making a living at fiction writing. Learn from them, take lessons from them, take what works for you and toss the rest. Agents and editors are not writers. If you listen to their words as if they are gospel, you are doomed, just as surely as thinking you can learn how to create original fiction by sitting in a college creative writing class. Not going to happen.

4) In no fashion allow anyone to take care of you.

This doesn’t mean you can’t hire help, but for heaven’s sake, know what your help is doing and you approve everything. And never let them have your money before you see it. That stupidity has to be stopped quickly in this business.

5) Make it a rule to take care of yourself.

Sure, you might not know how to do something, so GO LEARN IT. Stop thinking that someone else will take care of it for you and learn what you need to know to get your work in front of editors, to understand what you are signing in a contract, to know how the business works. It will take time, but learn one thing a week or a day and eventually you’ll have it.

And the moment you catch yourself thinking that someone needs to take care of that for you, stop and do it yourself. Make that a way of life. Make it a rule in your writing life and business.

QUESTION EVERYTHING!

Writers, it is way past time we started questioning these myths. All of them that I have been talking about for twenty-five chapters now.

DEAN’S RULES OF BUSINESS IN WRITING

#1… You must learn and understand the business you want to work in.

#2… Learn from other writers on the same road, not editors or agents.

#3…It is fine to hire help, but never hand over responsibility.

#4…Never let anyone touch your money.

#5…In all decisions you are responsible for your own career.

You follow those five rules and you will be surprised at how many problems you avoid and how far those rules will take you.

Just remember, when some young agent says that they will take care of you, understand what they are thinking about you:

“Oh, I can take this writer’s money. They are a patsy.”

Or

“This writer is too stupid to do it on their own.”

Get insulted, and if enough of us stop taking these insults and start questioning everything and taking responsibility for our own careers, maybe we can start the slow change it’s going to take to back out of this current mess.

I’m a dreamer I know, but that’s also my job description.

And I know what I’m doing. And if you just believed in yourself, you would too.

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Copyright 2010 Dean Wesley Smith
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Because of the new world and technology, my magic bakery got a lot more valuable lately. This is now part of my inventory in my bakery. (Confused on that, read the Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing post about making money with writing.) I’m giving you this small slice as a sample. I’m giving you a taste, but not selling any of the pie.

If you feel this helped you in any way, toss a tip into the tip jar on the way out of the Magic Bakery.

And I would like to thank all the fine folks who have donated. Once this book is done, I will send you a copy. The donations and the comments both after the posts and privately are really keeping me going on this. Thanks!

If you can’t afford to donate, please feel free to pass this chapter along to others who might get some help from it. Every week or so I will be adding a new chapter on the myths and sacred cows of publishing. Stay tuned. Upcoming are chapters on bestsellers, losing control of your writing, having it made, speed equals making money, more on agents, and so much more. This business has a lot of myths. An entire book full.

Thanks, Dean