Chase Gamwell
Basic
- Oct 14, 2015
It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but this appalled my delicate sensibilities as a writer (/s), so I had to share.
I was browsing r/writing yesterday, when I came across a question posed to the community. It asked published writers how many times their work was rejected before being published. Most of the responses were about what you would expect: many writers had hundreds of rejections and multiple retired projects.
Then this guy shows up...
He wrote a novel and was lucky enough to have an agent represent the work, but the stress of writing something else while the agent shopped it to publishers was simply unbearable. When I pointed out that he was lucky to have an agent, he said that was the easy part. And, apparently, the only lesson learned from the whole experience was that the novel he wrote, and eventually sold, probably wasn’t the best one to write as a debut.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
I’ve been on Litopia for a little over two years and I’ve never heard anyone describe the publishing process as easy. And I’ve never heard anyone lament the publishing process one they’ve gotten far enough to be a part of it.
As I pointed out to the person on reddit: agents accept under 1% of the queries that are sent to them, so getting that far is phenomenal. And complaining about your agent taking time to sell a work? That comes across as ungrateful.
Now, I’m not trying to be mean, but having spent so much time here, I’m well aware of the daily struggle most writers go through BEFORE querying agents. Then, when querying begins, it’s a whole different level of stress and worry.
Perhaps I just can’t understand this writer’s predicament because I haven’t experienced it? Perhaps I’m being too critical? What does everyone else think?
I was browsing r/writing yesterday, when I came across a question posed to the community. It asked published writers how many times their work was rejected before being published. Most of the responses were about what you would expect: many writers had hundreds of rejections and multiple retired projects.
Then this guy shows up...
He wrote a novel and was lucky enough to have an agent represent the work, but the stress of writing something else while the agent shopped it to publishers was simply unbearable. When I pointed out that he was lucky to have an agent, he said that was the easy part. And, apparently, the only lesson learned from the whole experience was that the novel he wrote, and eventually sold, probably wasn’t the best one to write as a debut.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
I’ve been on Litopia for a little over two years and I’ve never heard anyone describe the publishing process as easy. And I’ve never heard anyone lament the publishing process one they’ve gotten far enough to be a part of it.
As I pointed out to the person on reddit: agents accept under 1% of the queries that are sent to them, so getting that far is phenomenal. And complaining about your agent taking time to sell a work? That comes across as ungrateful.
Now, I’m not trying to be mean, but having spent so much time here, I’m well aware of the daily struggle most writers go through BEFORE querying agents. Then, when querying begins, it’s a whole different level of stress and worry.
Perhaps I just can’t understand this writer’s predicament because I haven’t experienced it? Perhaps I’m being too critical? What does everyone else think?
Walk away. Let it go. Ignore it. 
