Being forced to confront my ancient publishing history through a veil of dust and spider grunge reminded me of grievances from those years that I still keep on a steady simmer, all of them about contractual and payment issues and – shall we say – some folks' economy with the truth. I probably wouldn't have revealed this less loveable side of my saintly, forgiving personality if I hadn't seen this article in The Bookseller about a survey of 108 debut authors. It examines how they felt they were treated by their publishers when their first book came out. To the surprise of absolutely nobody who's been in the industry for any length of time, the majority response was "not very well."
Some authors had a positive view of their experience – 22% – but more than half said it damaged their mental health. They felt they didn't get support from their publisher, either personally or for the book launch, and communication was poor, whether that meant not giving the author honest information or just not responding to them. It's not a big sample, probably because it's a small field to start with, but the situations described would be familiar to any experienced author.
(A note on terminology: when the article says independent publishers, it means what I'd call a small publisher, with a stable of authors just like the big trad pub companies but on a smaller scale, not an author like me whose business is solely their own books. The term predates the self-publishing boom of the last decade or so, which is what most people I know mean when they say "indie.")
But it's that 54% with mental health issues that got my attention. Even allowing for today's trend to encourage people to see any emotional stress as a medical condition, that's still a striking figure. I'd like to have seen the full survey complete with questions to shed some light on that, and maybe more on the basic demographics – age, background, gender, and so on – but in its absence, I'll take it as it stands.
Let's pause for a reality check. Millions of people have to do tough jobs they don't like for low pay and in poor conditions. Some jobs don't even guarantee you'll live to see the next day. So I can't blame any of you struggling to find sympathy for those in a privileged, luxury job they not only chose but made a lot of effort to get. Nobody holds a gun to your head to force you to write. It's not the only employer in a decaying mining town where you're fated to grind out your days. (Although I do recommend enjoying this Monty Python sketch on a vaguely related topic.)
So I'm just dealing with publishing in isolation, not its relative ranking in the Crappiest Jobs League. It's not a comment on any of those writers who responded to the survey, either. I'm just considering traditional publishing (i.e. a company, large or small, that buys books from authors and publishes them) as a work environment and what it's like to be involved with it, because it's another thing readers don't normally get to see, and I know some of you would like to write professionally.
Is it really bad enough to leave more than half of its new recruits with mental health issues? If so, how can you protect yourself against that?
I expected to see the issues about poor support and bad communication. Old hands probably read the survey and said the newbies ain't seen nothing yet. (Yes, I did say exactly that.) Worse happens. Books get butchered – really botched, not just poorly edited – and contracts are flouted, money isn't paid, or the book an editor loved like a firstborn is suddenly axed when that editor leaves and the new incumbent wants to scent-mark their new territory. Novels and the careers that hang on them are sunk, sometimes through incompetence or neglect, but sometimes with some intent, and that was true even before the spread of cancel culture. Publishing is like every other walk of life; it'll always have its share of sociopaths, idiots, dingbats, and shysters on the payroll. That's life. And, to be fair on editors, some writers aren't always a joy to work with either. That's life as well.
What makes publishing less like most industries, though, is that it's the quiet end of the entertainment business, where hopefuls are prepared to risk a lot materially and emotionally to get a foot in the door, and that automatically sets up a gatekeeper and supplicant situation. One has a lot more power to wield over the other. Egos and insecurities abound. If you've pinned your happiness or your identity on becoming a successful author, which is a long shot to start with, you can make yourself emotionally vulnerable. Someone relatively low down the corporate food chain can crush your dream.
Writing books by chance rather than burning ambition makes a big difference. In my case, novels had never crossed my mind – it was someone else's idea when I needed a change of career. But fiction authors who didn't have any ambition to become one are probably a small minority. The only examples I know personally are other journalists. (And I automatically typed "other" because I still think of myself as a news journo, not a novelist, even after all these years. That's identity for you.) There's a point at which you look at your need to earn money, and the overlapping skill sets in the two jobs, and think, "Yeah, let's give it a shot, how hard can it be?" It's less of an emotional investment.
But if you dream of being an author – and if you dream of being rather than writing, there's your Achilles heel – it can be one hell of a blow when you finally beat the odds to get your Real Author badge but your book ends up dead on arrival.
Is it the end of the world? I imagine it feels like it. But it doesn't have to be, and I'll come back to that later.
Book publishing has all the ingredients for poor and even abusive working relationships. There's an apparently endless supply of would-be authors but a limited number of opportunities; not very highly-paid and occasionally dissatisfied staff who have power and often little supervision; and distance (literal and figurative) from the consequences of their actions. Tipping the power balance further, authors are isolated. They don't work together in the same office, or sometimes even in the same country, so they're easy to pick off, and they're reliant on information filtered to them (if they get it at all) rather than hearing it raw at the water cooler or receiving internal memos. Information inevitably becomes currency to the publisher – by which we almost always mean the editor, usually the author's sole point of contact – and a source of power. Even with homeworking and a lot more freelancing, the scales still tend to tip one way.
Authors don't usually share information about how they've been treated, and few talk about it publicly, so I thought it was quite brave of the survey respondents who did. Sometimes writers stay silent because they're too embarrassed to admit they've been lied to or stiffed, and sometimes it's because they fear losing work if they speak out. So an isolated victim never sees the broad pattern of behaviour. Trouble is, new entrants to the industry don't get advance warning either, and this is why I think the issue hinges on managing your expectations before you start.
Anyway, why is any of this Jessica Fletcher's fault? Well, she's my best go-to joke example about writing for a living, and I accept she was created for a light-hearted mystery show, not a gritty documentary. But in the absence of real-life knowledge, we subconsciously fill the vacuum with impressions gleaned elsewhere. For those of you who've watched Murder, She Wrote, you'll recall Fletcher's apparently idyllic lifestyle. As the show opens, you watch her type the final lines of her latest bestseller-to-be, pull the paper out of the typewriter, and set it down on the manuscript pile before swanning off to solve crimes, pausing occasionally to be feted by her editor or her agent on the release of her latest novel. (Was she elected to Congress as well, or did I imagine that? Damn, that woman was busy.) Everyone returns her calls. You never see her correcting proofs in the small hours, or dealing with linguistically-challenged copyeditors who object to use of the verb "cowed" in an alien world that has no cattle. (Yes, I have some jolly tales of copyeditors who seem to have no access to a dictionary. Oh, how we laughed.)
So while very few folks will think a novelist's life involves the crime-solving bit, they generally get the impression from Murder She Wrote and even heavyweight dramas that the book world is a relatively well-mannered industry where you'll at least be treated with basic professional courtesy, and your books – which the publisher has put time and money into – will get marketing support.
Some editors have described their job to me as mostly project management. I don't know if that's true in small publishers as well – the survey doesn't seem to show much difference in author experiences between large and small companies – but in the bigger ones, editors often have too heavy a workload to hand-hold, let alone do much serious editing. They also have a lot of autonomy, which can be great, but it also means those inclined to treat authors badly can do so because there seems to be limited management oversight of the nuts and bolts of the relationship. And that assumes someone would take action if they knew. To snowclone Dilbert, authors are the company's ninth most important resource after carbon paper. It's not spectacularly bad behaviour like editors throwing office chairs across the newsroom (an oft-told tale in one news outfit I used to work for) but passive-aggressive Mean Girls can do career damage too.
One of the survey respondents was shocked by "the cynicism that underlies the superficial charm of this industry." Another mentions "a parent/child relationship with a lot of gaslighting and fake conversations." Well, yes. Some editors seem to have a low regard for writers in general, and it's almost funny to see those who forget there's an author involved in the process at all. (Carbon paper, remember.) It also begs a question I'll have to leave for another day, along with other issues like the role agents play in all this: why do people go into publishing?
On the balance of probability, then, I'm inclined to have some sympathy for those new authors when it comes to support. Any other industry would put a bit of oomph behind a new product, even if they dropped it like a red-hot brick afterwards. It's also not unreasonable to expect to be told the truth and to have your questions answered rather than being blanked, especially as a first-time author. So yes, I can see why some were upset, disillusioned, or shocked by how things worked out.
On the other hand, taking a look at some of the detail, I don't think it's the publisher's job to train authors in public speaking, video production, or any other general business skill you need as an author – unless they insist that you do these things and it'll cost you money to learn. And I don't think they're qualified to recognise emotional or health problems, let alone offer support.
So here's the best writing advice I was ever given, and the only real advice I ever give, because it's probably the only thing that applies to every writer and every aspect of the job.
Nobody is going to do it for you. You've got to do it for yourself.
When I was on the Clarion programme at MSU in 2000, one of our writer tutors told us that holy truth, and I've lived by it. When it comes to your career, she said, nobody else is going to do it for you – not your publisher, not your agent, and not other writers. (And I'll update that for the present day: not Amazon, Apple, or any other sales platform, either.) Nobody will ever care about your career as much as you do. You're on your own. You have to look after yourself.
Okay, in that survey, it looks like a lot of authors did do things for themselves to promote their books, and still had a tough time. But I think you have to start from the position that you're on your own before you commit time and hope to writing a novel, which means getting yourself in the right mindset long before you realise you have to pimp your own book because your publisher isn't going to. It means accepting that neither your agent nor your editor are your best mates, however well you think you get on with them. You're disposable because there'll always be another author waiting to take your place. Even if you're not disposable because you make them money, you can still get screwed over.
The trick is to start out with a Plan B – and a C, and having a D up your sleeve isn't a bad idea either – even if you think you'll never need it. But the most important preparation is to rid yourself of the idea that you need the validation of a publisher for your self-respect and happiness.
Luckily, Plan B is a bit easier today. If getting a novel on sale is what really matters to you, you always have the option of self-publishing, which was much harder and relatively rare when I began. Today, it's a well-trodden path with plenty of resources to get you started, and it's not a last resort. Established authors do it because they want to see more of their earnings ending up in their own wallets, and there's a whole new generation of very successful authors who went straight to indie and have never been published traditionally at all. You can make more money, too. (See this survey from indie writers' organisation ALLi.) And the editor, copyeditor, and designer you hire work for you. That alone can help foster better working relationships as far as I'm concerned – choose wisely and you can be a team of equals.
I'm not saying an indie life is the solution to everything. It's a lot more work than just writing books, you still have to beware snake-oil merchants, and some people just won't be comfortable running a business for a variety of reasons. There are still 800-pound gorillas in the background who can ruin your plans in a heartbeat, too, whether that's Amazon, Apple, or any of the other marketplaces where you'll want to sell your work, which is why more authors are now busy developing sales from their own sites. All I'm saying is your writing career isn't over if trad pub doesn't work out or lets you down, and more control over your life is always better than less.
If any of the unhappy authors in that survey stopped writing because of their experiences, I hope they've come to see themselves now as having survived a working culture that can make even hardened old hacks decide they're just not paid enough to put up with it. I really hope all those whose mental health suffered will look back at some point and think, "Screw you, it's just a book. And when did you ever write one of those?" Because whether your book tanked or hit the best-sellers' lists, you did something that most editors haven't, wouldn't, or couldn't, and you can still do it again if you want to. You create the product: you can hold the cards.
I know nice, normal people at publishing houses who just want to earn a living and help make the books they take on the best they can be. I also know great freelance editors who are a real pleasure to work with. But you'll always come across people who'll mess with you because they know they'll get away with it, or need a victim to make themselves feel better, or don't even realise how they're behaving because everyone around them behaves like that too. You'll also run into people who mean well but aren't very competent, or just don't care. Again, that's life.
But you can walk away. No optional job is worth your health or sanity. If you're that willing to be miserable at work, there are much more lucrative careers where you can be equally unhappy for a lot more money and get weekends off as well.
I hope all that didn't come across as too grim, and I'm not making light of anyone's unhappiness, although I do think it's time we started teaching resilience again. I come from a professional background that would regard cannibalism as just bad manners, and I got off lightly in the trad pub world compared to some of the stuff I've seen done to colleagues – nobody touched my books or tried to cancel me. So even as a compulsive flogger of dead horses it was easy for me to call endex on it and set up an alternative writing career. But unless they're carrying a shotgun, people can only exert as much power over you as you allow them to. Get angry, or get even, but don't get ground down. Or cowed down, either.
Here endeth the lesson on arming yourself for commercial authorhood and going in with your eyes open. I'm off to the seedling intensive care unit now (the windowsill) to check on the red shiso, a herb I count on to make a year's supply of delicious syrup every summer. I'm on my third batch of seeds this season and so far only one appears to have germinated. The grower I sometimes buy shiso plants from says he has the same problem and he's on batch four. Panic has set in at Traviss Towers: a summer without red shiso syrup is... well, a summer without red shiso syrup. But if that's the biggest problem I have right now, life's not too bad. I already had plan B on standby. I have a stockpile of dried red shiso for eventualities such as this, even as I pin my hopes on that poor little lonely seedling.
So midsummer's here, it seems. Enjoy it, keep reading, remember that "No" is a complete sentence, and I'll talk to you again next month.
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