I'm convinced that more people would stick with their writing if every rejection letter came with a small piece of "condolences chocolate." A single M&M, even.
@@AlasdairGR Shammy also flies in the face of that, but they're both old guard. Pulling that off has gotten harder over time. And will keep getting harder.
"If you're a novelist you're probably not very good in being concise" You might as well come to my home and slap me in the face with this level of personal attack
Agents are worth every penny of that cut just for being the buffer that translates, "Are you drunk AND high, you artless hack $&^@!?", to "Your feedback is appreciated as always. My client will consider your suggestions and we'll get back to you with revisions shortly."
"There's a business centaur that owns a company and he's just living his life until one day a plucky young virgin becomes his secretary." If you don't write it I will, and I'm calling it Secretariat's Secretary.
I remember hearing a writer explain that the moment when he was able to look at his own work and see the issues and how to fix them, that's when he started being able to get things published. Also, having a platform doesn't always mean guaranteed sales for self-publishing, frequently the audience that consumes free content has very little crossover with the audience that's willing to pay for content.
Found an old draft of a story I wrote... A bit over half a decade ago. Ask me then and I would have said this goes straight to publisher the world and I am ready. Ask me now and I would ask someone to put that writer out of our misery. Sometimes it really does take age and experience? Stare at a manuscript for long enough and it kind of becomes a word salad. You sort of acclimate to its "badness" and coming back with years of experience and a fresh eye and it's like "oh my godd, no, why did you write it like that, delete all of this, this prologue has nothing to do with the story, these characters come out of nowhere they should be deleted, tie the main plot closer to your central three characters" Like I'd at some point written in a love triangle just so there'd be a love triangle and when I wrote that second character out the quality and conciseness of the writing doubled because the focus was now on the main romance.
Be extremely talented, hard working, and well adjusted; and then get super lucky. Tale as old as time. May it be a best seller and optioned into a Netflix series
“My heroes are dead, my enemies are in power” - there is a Brazilian song from 88 called Ideologia with a very similar chorus : “My heroes died of overdose, my enemies are in power”. It was a big wtf moment to hear that in English.
I love that you said being a novelist is incredibly slow-going and you need patience, as opposed to saying it's incredibly difficult. It gives people a lot more hope to hear it phrased like that. Thank you!
JackgarPrime It takes around 3-5 hours a day to write 2,000 words. I think it’s very doable with just a partime job. Everything is just habit, tbh. If you’re used to only writing 500 words a week then yes 2,000 words a day is going to sound crazy, but it’s not really that bad.
@@mav8535 TL:DR Version: Lindsey was aggressively bullied on twitter/social media about her beliefs or her stance on topics whilst dealing with depression and the passing of her father, so she was in a dark place and getting singled out by a sect. of people trying to "remove her" from social media in general. few years pass and when she was trying to get other projects done all the previous fake news that was made and some real news was brought back up which complicated projects she was working on. In the end,John Green is a great friend to have.
24:55 for anyone who’s curious, as I was when I posed the question at one of her online book tours: the problem that her literary agent pinpointed as to why many publishers felt they couldn’t sell the book was Cora’s age. I’m hoping she’ll address this later down the line as I can only vaguely remember her full answer on this, but the short version is that Cora was originally 18 and publishers at the time and also now are trying to stay away from anything resembling a teenage girl book. So she revised it so that Cora is now college aged.
@@thepinkestpigglet7529 In one of her videos she said that Cora was also still in high school. And publishers were hesitant because she was not only 18/19 but also in high school.
"I'm not good at finishing stuff so I'll go into data collection" - me, a data scientist who was once an aspiring author when younger: Wow, I feel personally attacked by Lindsay Ellis right now
Yeah right? I mean, the past three videos seemed a bit forced and underwhelming, but I'm happy to see her return back to form and talk about something she actually cares about
Also a very original and cool way to promote her book Really respect that as she's giving us a little something in exchange, and she hasn't half arsed it either, 30 minutes! Might buy the book and i (almost) never buy YT books....
Gol dingit, I wrote a comment in response and hit something and it disappeared. Oh well--here goes again! I actually wondered about Infinite Jest while she was speaking (without having noticed it on her shelf) and wondered if some publisher saw it and immediately screamed "YES!" But I looked it up and he had excerpts published in several magazines first, so that would probably be a very different route to publication. Also, regarding that shelf -- Meyers is next to Wallace . . . nope. Maybe Foster is next to . . . nope. Infinite is next to Twilight . . . NOPE! ARGH! What the hell is her organizational system? lol
Are you asking why she has those two next to each other based on quality or based on genre or what? Because, while I would love to understand why she organizes as she does... I am just a bit confused on your statement as a whole. I have read excerpts of Infinite Jest and read the entirety of Twilight... Therefore, I formed my opinion on both before even coming to this comment... My opinion might be based on my professor in college and her absolute adoration of the book... and making us read 300 pages of it in small Bible print... in three weeks... in a fiction writing class... and not even stuff in order... merely stuff that seems to interrelate without actually explaining any of it... But Twilight was better... no one will convince me otherwise. This is just my opinion on the two pieces of fiction based upon someone literally shoving David Foster Wallace down my throat over and over and not allowing me to actually have an opinion about the text that was not what she personally believed... Sorry... Having read the mentioned 300 pages within the last two months... and dealing with her referencing it every other class... including how little of our fiction could measure up to his "masterpiece" and its over-explanation of minor characters... your statement triggered my bitchy subroutines.
Same. My decision to pursue a creative writing degree questioned by various family members a number of times, and I've always been like "oh even if I don't publish anything I'll be fine. The degree is so general I can use it almost anywhere". Now I'm wondering if I made a grave mistake. Not gonna give up because writing is the one thing I've ever been kinda good at, but I'm definitely doubling down on that whole "make sure I have a day job as a backup plan" thing.
abandon hope all ye who enter here. Also self publish. You won't be mega huge, but you also won't have to go through this bullshit. It would help to be you-tube famous.
As someone who's spent five years going through this process (I've never gotten an agent, just a handful of full requests), I'd like to thank you for this, Lindsay. It gives me inspiration to keep going.
@@alwaystired4 6 more years and you have a chance right? ....actually no, that was for the highly biased sample of _published_ authors. Of whom, the mean was 11 years. My gf keeps telling me that I should start writing. Yeah... no.
Honestly, as a 24 year old who has no idea what they're doing in life and just wants to finish a goddamn self-insert reader x character fanfiction, this video was inspirational.
Not even just that it took ten years but that she had to keep powering through all the rejections and setbacks when it would be so much easier to just give up and toss the idea/dream of getting a book published right out the window.
@@JenamDrag0n I think the important thing to take to heart here is that rejection is survivable, the problem isn't always you it's just as likely to be whether people think there's a market for the story you want to write. And also, even if the problem is with what you wrote, with a little clarity of distance, and outside perspective, doing tripple bypass surgery on your darlings is a lot more surmountable.
Shoulda self published. She tortured herself because her ego was too big to accept just taking a smaller prize. Woulda been less painful, but then again, maybe the book wouldn't have been as good so. Who knows, maybe she made the right call, in the end.
@@Bustermachine "I think the important thing to take to heart here is that rejection is survivable, the problem isn't always you" I dunno, that's even worse to me. I don't think I would have survived it. If there's literally nothing I can do about it and it's just the whims of an uncaring universe, why keep fighting for it? _How_ do you keep fighting? I don't know how she did it (but I'm glad she did and I look forward to reading it).
I was terrified of this video. I've just finished my 4th NaNoWriMo, and while I've "won" it several times, this was the first time I actually wrote an ending to one of the drafts I was working on. Now I'm in editing hell and... I'm scared. I want to try and get this published, I know I do, but I also know I'll be rejected over and over for sure. So when I saw this video, my first thought was "If even she can barely do it, what chance do I have?" Now I watched the video and I'm glad I did. Your experiences are super insightful. I still know it's gonna be hard. But at least now I know that if I stay on it, eventually my patience CAN pay off...
"Which just reveals these people don't know how anything works. That's fine... that's why I'm here." -- Lindsay I love the level of confidence required for this statement. Down with the ignorant haters! This video pretty much confirms what I've already heard as an aspiring author trying to break into the industry. It sucks. There's very little chance that your passion project that you have worked on for years will ever see the light of day, yet we toil on anyways in the hopes that shouting into the void long enough will mean someone will answer. Thank you Lindsay for everything you do. I always appreciate your insightful analysis and your drive towards understanding the art that our culture produces. YOU are the modern academia, and I've learned just as much from you as I have from any college or grad school classroom. I'm going ahead and pre-ordering your book simply to show my appreciation for everything you've done. Maybe having that RU-vid platform will end up paying off afterall! I have confidence it'll be a good read anyways.
Man this is sad. This reminds me of the plight with nonfiction. I kind of want to write nonfiction and this is what one of my professors said about doing an academic study. "You do all of this work and ultimately nobody reads it except you and your grad students."
"How many rejection letters can you take?" Post-graduate me machine-gunning my resume to anyone with an email address: "Hey, at least they read it! ... Right?"
Depends on the company and how many resumes they receive periodically. If they only receive a handful, they'll pay attention to it. If they receive a few hundred on a periodic basis... well... Each person has their own technique of how to "cull" the bad (unlikely candidates) from the good (or at least the ones they will bother analyzing). Can't explain, because it's something different for each person. For example: Look at file-size: too small/large - auto reject (same for page size). Then look at picture: not flattering - auto reject Then any quick summary that doesn't catch the attention - probably auto-reject. Then quickly skim through resume without reading it. No decent formatting - auto-reject Spelling/grammar mistakes are found just by skimming: auto-reject And if you're the last resume they see on Thursday or Friday evening - auto reject (No, seriously. You have no idea how the time of day and the mood it drives will make people reject more easily). Generally: don't send resume's on Friday afternoon or Friday evening. If the person handling it has gone home for the weekend, and there's a few hundred mails waiting for him/her Monday morning, there's a good chance (s)he'll never even get to your resume and auto-delete it just to make space in their mailbox. Generally remember that on the other side is only a human being. If they have to dig through hundreds of shitty resumes on a periodic basis, at least make sure yours doesn't look like garbage.
That's why here in the UK, thankfully, you have what we call a CV. It's short, to the point, lists your previous job experience and a brief summary on what you did and why you left. Admittedly mine is basically a long litany of leaving because I was made redundant (aka laid off)...
This is largely unrelated but I was on my first Strucci binge recently and I wasn't sure if she had any connection to essayists I was familiar with, and I started to wonder...am I still in BreadTube? Where are the boundaries of Fantasia? But then I saw an Ollie comment and thought, oop I guess I'm home in Kansas where I always was. I hate that ending. Something-something parasocial relationships, something-something "boundaries" works twice there. :/
anything that is compared to the Three Body Problem instantly piques my interest, one of the best sci-fi series of the 21st century. Do you happen to know any similar books?
@@qaztim11 oh damn. Not heard of the three-body problem until my sister got it me for my birthday a few months back.. I suppose I better open it right NOW
@@oldclem_ yes you should, it is a very unique take on a first contact scenario, and it actually teaches you a fair amount about the chinese cultural revolution. And the writer has a background in science, and most of the sci-fi concepts that the books deal with are plausible.
so basically lindsay at the beginning of the decade: trying to understand publishing lindsay at the end of the decade: still trying to understand publishing
In one of the online book tours, she said it was the age of Cora. Initially she was 18, and her agent told her most publishers are trying to stay away from teenage girl stories these days, so now Cora is in her early 20s.
@@Brinta3 on one hand you’re right probably i haven’t watched this video in two years but on the other hand Holy Heck You’re Responding To This Two Years Later?
I am a fellow creative (author of two published novels, debuting a third in 2020), and when I heard that you had wrangled yourself a paid book deal, I erroneously assumed that you had gotten the book deal purely because of your existing following as a video essayist/vlogger/influencer. I remember being genuinely angry about that - so I'm really glad that you put out this video and set me straight. I've preordered your book, and look forward to reading it.
Glad you came around, but let's be honest, it's easier to sell a book by someone if they have a proven following. People get book deals all the time just because they have already have a platform. It's a safer bet.
I bought a book from an aspiring author posting RU-vid videos reviewing scifi shows, movies, and books. I believe he selfpublished. Long story short: wasted of money.
"...writers are not good at judging the merits of their own work..." Well... that explains a lot of what's going on in the comics industry... particularly, the big two.
I think the issue is not necessarily that it's easier: rather, it's a different skillset. Ie, people who are writing books already know how to write - at least in theory. What they don't know is how to business (as it were). The same issue shows up in teaching martial arts: the ability to be a good martial artist is a different skillset than teaching martial arts, which is a different skillset from running a martial arts school; to be academic/formal about it, one is getting your degree in Dance, one is a degree in Education, and one is a degree in Business.
So when I was a teenager I discovered I had *some* talent in writing, and that I actually enjoyed doing it. Although at the time it was almost entirely incred-emo woe-is-me shitty "poetry." When I matured slightly I wanted to try my hand at writing fiction and quickly discovered that for the life of me I could not write a character that was not some type of established trope I had seen in TV and movies. Anyway, the point is after DMing Dungeons and Dragons for years I've recovered some confidence in my ability to create fiction and I appreciate this video greatly. Thank you for *mostly* detailing your experience and explaining what is likely ahead of me. If I ever actually grow a pair, I may try.
I watched this video in December. I was not in the greatest place mentally. I'd been shopping around various versions of a novel for five years, and was starting to believe I'd never land a literary agent. Well, this week, I landed the agent of my dreams, and in some weird superstitious ritual, I've come back to watch this again and give you the blood of my firstborn. Thank you, Lindsay!
"An alternate history first contact adventure set in the early 2000’s, pitched as Stranger Things meets Arrival, by video essayist Lindsay Ellis." Damn they're really out for you.
*Trying to pitch my novel* "Don't say it's Mafia erotica, don't say it's Mafia erotica, don't say it's Mafia erotica!" *deep breath* "So my novel is a romance crime drama with strong themes of corruption, lost of innocence, and the perils of capitalism."
I'm planning on putting myself through this hell for most likely the next decade, but actually, I'm feeling okay about failure. Not too long ago I got a comment from someone on a fanfic that I wrote years ago, saying that they had a habit of coming back to it and re-reading it because they found it comforting. And you know, even if that is all my writing career ever amounts to, I'm happy that someone, somewhere, connected with something I wrote and put out there. That's pretty magical and rewarding.
It’s not a “RU-vidr-book” any more than John’s is. You’re not a RU-vidr doing a book on a whim or an offer. You’re an author who also does RU-vid (really well).
Honestly, the same could be said about any book John Green released after Vlogbrothers took off. Turtles All The Way Down isn't really a "RU-vidr Book" thing. It's an "established author also does RU-vid" thing.
Then you've got non-fiction works like "Terrible Games you've probably never heard of", which is my go to example of a good youtuber book because it is stupidly well researched AND its by someone who loves the field of early 80s and 90s video games. I know I keep promoting this book here but it really is very well done.
Honestly as a person in that stage of overly expensive college is over and entering the scary world of tv and film. This video helped me get through some mental hurdles knowing many are ahead. Congratulations Lindsay on your book
"The influencers sit recumbent on their chaise lounge and receive the offers" We all know you make no secret of your love of Contrapoints, but I still caught that Lindsay!
@Hans Hanzo Lindsay was literally on the Project for Awesome 2019 charity livestream with Hank Green 2 days ago. XD She lit some terrible vodka on fire and then drank what was left; Hank wrote something goofy on his face with Sharpie... all for charity! :D
Oh my gosh you have Wool on your shelf! I remember when he first self-published the story. We were all in a writers forum together. He was an inspiration. We were all just throwing spaghetti at the wall and reporting back on what stuck!
I think it’s more like “the worst timeline”, but what do I know. (2016 feels like it was the moment when the time Traveller went back and killed hitler, and when he came back it turned out the world was suddenly much worse than before.)
''Just finished reading your novel. All I can say is that Axiom's end is totally you as portrayed in your essays and purported interests. Congratulations on publishing such an authentic book about aliens and college dropouts. It was a fun read!.'' -Guillaume's proofreader Jerome.
Honest moment. I bought this to support you... I never expect much from first novels, so it was purely a "support my favorite RU-vidr's habit of writing" kind of thing. I am absolutely blown away. This novel is easily as good as several of Neal Stephenson, or William Gibson. It had a very similar reader feel to The Peripheral, which is in my reread cycle (this one will be as well). You are in my shortlist of novelists, along with Herbert, Gibson, Gaiman, Dick and... I waited to buy this book because I was just... Thank you for all your content. All. Of. It. Never stop being candidly who you are. It is stellar.
3:41 I wrote an Urban Fiction novel and this is the stage that Im in. I went through Ingramspark and I couldn't believe the amount of protocol I had to undergo just to get the book ready for distribution. Like you said, just when you think you're done, they'll tell you that the file is too big, the margins are so small, or anything else that will make you scream! That being said, I wouldn't undervalue the opportunity to become a publish author.
As someone closing in on a decade of trying to get something published, this video makes me feel personally attacked in that way of like "ohh....ohh....ohhhh, I'm sad now. I should go back to editing."
Sounds like someone is in the market for guinea pigs to give feedback! I mean beta readers. (but if you are my inbox is open, like this reply if you want me to read your novel)
The comment section has your back, Cyrus! I mean, you're taking the steps and making the moves. That's more than most can say. And, if the average publishing time is 11 years, then you're just par for the course.
while the exorbitant amount of rewrites a publisher puts you through is hell, it's also interesting to see the failures of Kickstarter projects show symptoms of unregulated writing and polish that comes with getting your funding first and your criticism later
Auteur ego is a problem that should be cured (especially with Kickstarter project) no matter the medium (movies, novels, comics and especially video games). Lindsay should do a video on how the freedom of creator can both benefit and harm the work.
Thank you so much for this video! I'm about 30,000 words through my book right now (which I plan on being an illustrated novel since I'm an illustrator too which pretty much relegates me to indie/niche publishing being my only option, but that's fine) and it's really helpful to get some realistic insight on the process and meter my expectations. Also as exhausted as I can see you are by the process this still gave me a hit of motivation and inspiration. Can't wait to read Axiom's End!
Lindsay reading the summary on the back of her book: "And I didn't write this" My dumbass: "So you're talking about a book where you share the name with author? Where is this going?" Took another two minutes to realize my mistake. Thanks for the video Lindsay.
I'm a freelancer editor and proofer, and I am occasionally the one who writes the book descriptions for the author, depending on the company I'm working with. Sometimes the descriptions written by the author aren't great because it's hard for the author to be succinct about their work. I recently did one where the author and I collaborated on writing the long version for the book description (Amazon lets you do much longer book descriptions than will fit on the back or the inside cover), went through a few drafts to get a final version that we were both happy with, and then I edited it down for the short blurb.
I'm interning at an indie press right now and have to read tons of slush. Every rejection letter I send out (even to poorly written manuscripts) makes my heart ache.
@@grumpyotter Some internships are paid although most are not. However, internships are the best (if not the only) way to begin a career in publishing :)
K A it depends what role you have: editorial, marketing, production, etc. It is very much centered around business and sales, but it is also rewarding to produce books you care about!
I've been a fan of your content for a while now. You manage to present fairly complex ideas/criticism in an accessible and humourous way. Oh and memes of course. This is not easy to do and I'm sure you could make your videos more academic if you wanted to but wouldn't reach as wide an audience. You're damn good at this basically and your view counts are a testament to that. Anyway, sycophantic preamble aside, I just wanted to tell you I think you're extremely brave. Having just watched your XOXO presentation, I have to admit I belong to the group that had no idea you had suffered so much abuse from alt-right groups. My heart goes out to you. Sincerely. It's such a unique and modern form of trauma and you are absolutely right that there isn't enough support for it. There is a kind of disorientating disjunct to it due to the fact that we have programmed ourselves to equate what is essentially simulacra with living, breathing bodies in space. I would suppose this uncertainty exacerbates the feelings of fear, anxiety isolation etc. All I could say in the way of advice would be to try and unplug from the virtual mainframe as much as you can because you'll surely find many living, breathing bodies in space who love and respect you! Anyway I know you have a youtube assistant now and you probably wont read this, but I just wanted to show my support.
The year is 2049. My heroes are long dead. My enemies remain in power. My last 3 lives were spent assaulting the banks of the New York Financial district. And I mean literal shoreline, not the banking institutions. Even if those were our target. But we never made it past Water Street.
As someone who has dreamed of being a novelist since the third grade, I can't tell if this video empowers me to keep going (like, hey, everyone faces failure!) Or if it completely discourages me. But that's the grey area ive been operating under my entire life so not much has changed.
Me: Oh hey, I want to pre-order a book I'll later forget I bought! Amazon: Yeah, you already bought that book. Me: I... I did? Amazon: Yup! Two months ago. Me: Oh! Sweet!
Lindsay, thank you so much for sharing your trials and tribulations of author-dom with us. I remember your videos from 2010 and wondered how grad school was going (I went to grad school myself a few years ago, in something not-film). I've had a story in my head for more than a decade, and haven't finished them. Your struggles give me hope that I could publish a novel in 10 years. I'm glad you admit to struggling because it shows all of us how normal struggling is, and how to find hope somewhere through the failure. Love you, Lindsay, your videos always teach me something.
I think this is an incredible lesson on the quote “successful writers are the ones that never quit.” Perseverance paid off. It’s super inspiring that you never gave up. Not really:)
There's something about seeing someone you've been following since the beginning of their career reach a goal you yourself have set. Thank you for the newfound fervor Lindsay.
Thanks for this Lindsay. I rediscovered you on RU-vid years after I first saw you on "the channel that must not be named" (I was a NCritic fan and watched like two of you videos). It's amazing to see how far you've come and the insight you have to offer. In an over saturated market of media criticism your take is always unique, balanced and insightful (perhaps because of your experience "growing up" on the internet). Keep doing what you do and best of luck on your novel!
