Why fishy
@Quillwitch? You think he has an agenda?
Well, first off, someone who calls himself " The world´s greatest writing teacher" is obviously pushing an agenda! ( Ugh, whatever dude!)
Second, just by going to his webpage I can see that he is a marketing expert, his job is promoting stuff, and much of what he promotes and ghostwrites and teaches about is non-fiction. Nothing to do with me/us. Yet, he tries to apply the knowledge he has about non-fiction to fiction/novel writing which is a whole other world. Yes, time and again people who are going to write non-fiction are told that they should promote themselves, have web pages, do things to put themselves out there as experts on whatever it is they are writing about--I agree with that. BUT--I think he exaggerates when he says that this also holds true for fiction writers. He´s generalizing, and he´s trying to convince you, mostly, that he knows what he´s talking about. Why? Well, because his videos really serve himself. He makes them to promote himself, and then he says--hey, that´s what YOU should be doing if you want to sell something to NY. Otherwise, forget about it!
( And as aside--maybe I can help you with that...) ( And, did you notice all the name dropping on his page? Looks like he only works with the famous too!)
That´s how I´m looking at it.
Again, I think he exaggerates. Yes, it´s true that promoting your own books, self-publishing and selling thousands of books on Amazon is certainly a great way to draw attention to your work, but that is in no way THE ONLY WAY. Hell no! Seriously, if things were as bad as he wants you to believe, agents would have already been out of a job. And so would publishers, becuase, as he rightfully states--why then, would you need them if you can do it yourself? I would go so far as to say that if you are one of the lucky one selling say 10,000 to 20,000 or more books a year on your own, why would you even turn your head to look at the advance being waved in your face? If you´re smart, you´d realize that advance will only serve to tie you to a publishing house and come next year you will see your profit dwindle compared to what you were making as an indy writer.
Do the large publishing houses promote their writers? Yes, if they are sure they will get their money back. That holds true for a best selling author AND a new author with a book that has super commercial value. Do publishing houses buy work from new author? Absolutely, if it´s something that will bring them money. Publishing is a business. If you have a product that sells well, a publishing company will buy your work. No doubt about it. And if it´s really good, they will fight for it. Do you need to have a following before publishing a novel--of course not. Nobody had ever heard of the authors of books such as gone girl. girl on the train, the girl with the dragon tattoo, Harry Potter, Twilight, The hate you give, etc etc etc... no one knew who the authors were before being published and they all rose to the top. And they all wrote up their query letters and sold their books in traditional form. So, they no longer want to break out a new author? This guys is bollucks!
You write a good story, with commercial appeal, geared toward the correct audience, and someone will buy your book. Will they promote it? Yes, though some will be promoted more than others. But if they´ve invested in your book, they will promote it some way. Do they expect you to help, of course. Why wouldn´t you? Actors are forced to do interviews and tours to sell their movies, why not writers? Do writers have to promote themselves. OFCOURSE, but only AFTER their books have been published, not before. "They are lazy...they want a sure thing..." --no, they are not lazy, they just won´t spend money on something that won´t sell above what they will spend on marketing for a certain product. "They want a sure thing..." don´t we all?
![Er... what? o_O o_O](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f635.png)