How to be optimistic
Publishing houses just aren’t buying romance anymore.
Agents don’t want to rep women’s fiction that’s too witty/dark /written by anyone older than 35.
Self-help doesn’t sell unless you’re a celebrity.
These are just a few of the statements I’ve heard from writers over the past couple of weeks. They’re not pulling these statements out of a hat; they’re hearing them from other writers and industry insiders. One client told me she’d watched a panel where a well-known agent at a major literary agency announced that writers have no control over their careers. (You won't be surprised to learn that this made my client feel super discouraged.) Another attended a virtual pitch event where she was repeatedly told that even if her book did sell, she’d never make a living as a novelist.
Let me be frank: that’s all a load of crap. Or to be more diplomatic, those are opinions, not facts. How do I know? Because I read Publishers Marketplace (specifically the deals reports) religiously. And every week, writers of all stripes are selling romance. And women’s fiction that's dark/witty/not on-trend. Self-help of the non-Hollywood variety. A good number of these deals are salary-sized, too—you know, the kind you might call making a living.
Listen, I’m not saying you should quit your job when you’re halfway through writing the first draft of your debut novel. But stop tuning in to the sad trombones and start looking for evidence that you’re going to succeed. Your brain’s like a toddler; if you don’t give it with something constructive to do, it’s going to run around making trouble.
When you buy into these tired tales about how hard it is to make it, you're going to feel pessimistic. And that emotion prompts you to take all kinds of seemingly-minor actions (think scheduling appointments during your writing time, drinking too much and waking up too hungover to focus, or not fully developing your story before you start writing because you’ll "just have to edit it anyway") that reduce your odds of success. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Your homework for the week: go find at least three established writers who are already succeeding at what you want to do. Then start telling better stories about what’s up ahead for you. Your future self will thank you.
—Camille