I’ve been getting this question quite a bit lately. I guess it’s a bit boggling to the mind to think about the queries agents receive and to contemplate the authors behind them, and the sheer number of people out there working on books.
Are there really 15,000+ people a year querying agents? Are there really that many novels and memoirs and self-help books and alien encounters of the dubious kind? There are really that many people writing books? Really?
There’s only one way to answer this question: yes, there are. There really are.
But there’s a Part II to the answer, which is, as Kristin Nelson recently wrote: don’t worry about those other books out there.
It’s so tempting to feel as if your books is in competition with all of those other books on submission, not to mention the ones coming out by already-popular authors, and to be bogged down by the sheer impossible odds of it all. It’s temping to want someone else’s success story to be yours and to measure whatever success you’ve achieved against someone who has “made it.”
Don’t do it. The only person you’re in competition with is yourself. You can’t control how many people are out there, how many queries agents are getting, how many celebrities are writing books, etc. etc.
All you can control is your own work. Focus on that. The odds are just numbers. Don’t let them get you down.
Of course, how do we know it's not just 5 people querying 3,000 manuscripts apiece (and all under different pseudonyms)? 🙂
ha ha Krista, 15000 queries does not seem a lot compared to the world's literate population.
Excellent advice, Nathan, and really, if you're writing for the sole reason of being published, then you're in for a tough time regardless. Anybody who quits writing because they think the odds of their getting published are too high probably wasn't that passionate or dedicated to begin with.
My creative writing teacher in college said on our first day, 'If you can do anything else other than write, do that.' I thought it was harsh at the time, but see now that really, the only people brave/foolish enough to commit to the long haul are the ones who love writing too damn much to quit.
I almost got first comment on this because my other post on the Beatles controversy got zapped by your super-user privileges as editor.
This is the crux of it all no?
It is all about the power of the story and the amount of craftsmanship applied to it's execution. I'm satisfied with my storytelling but willingly improving my craftsmanship and execution in service to the storytelling. Most books are retreads.
The stories people desperately want to read always end up encoded in subsidiary works because telling the whole story is as difficult as writing The Odyssey and Wuthering Heights simultaneously plus throwing in six million zombies. As Tony Soprano would say to his cohorts every other episode: "fuhgeddaboudit"
At least until my skills improve/
Looking for the official spelling? Forget about it.
Consensus is definitely for "fuhgeddaboudit." But at least 53 different spellings can be found on the web. As of December 2004, here are the top ten…
spelling — (google hits) — (nytimes.com hits)
fuhgeddaboudit (82200) (20)
fuggedaboudit (6760) (14)
fuggedaboutit (6040) (4)
fuhgeddaboutit (5770) (35)
fuggetaboutit (3760) (0)
fuhgetaboutit (3430) (2)
fuhgedaboudit (2530) (8)
fahgetaboutit (2470) (0)
fugedaboudit (2240) (0)
fugetaboutit (2010) (0)
Great reminder, Nathan. Thank you for sharing.
Loved this post. So true. I also read somewhere that there really is no competition between books because, as a reader, you don't have to choose between two books. You can get both–or all twenty. It's not an either/or thing.
Er, my first comment was a bit confusing, but I still hope people get the gist of it.
Great advice Nathan. And once you stop worrying about what all the other writers out there are doing, you free up heaps of extra energy to focus on your own writing and on making it better. I've always approached my own writing with the philosophy that I'm in competition with myself rather than anyone else – in other words, every time I write, I need to improve on my previous writing pieces…
I so agree with this post! You really are only in competition with yourself, because if you write a killer book, people will want to read it. No matter how many other books they also want to read.
It's not like people say to themselves "Oh, no. I won't read Harry Potter, because I'm busy reading the Da Vinci Code." No, they say, "I need something new to read once I'm done with the Da Vinci Code. Heard that Potter book is good."
Like most everyone, I have my days of failing courage and jealousy of other writers. But I try to keep two things in mind. The first is the more good books people read, the more good books they want to read. A good book will leave the reader wanting more, more, more. So, that's good for everyone.
Also, I love to read good books. Love it. I'm not just a writer, I'm a reader. In fact, I'm a reader first. So, bring on the great books. The more the merrier. I'll read them, love them, learn from them. They'll enhance my writing, and my life.
So, the more the merrier! I can't always remember that, but when I can, I feel much better.
And the last point – every piece of writing, even when it's derivitive, is unique. No one can write the books you write. No one. Not a single person on earth. So, no one can really compete with you, because you're product is one of a kind.
Phew. I went on a typing flurry here. :p
Thanks for the post and the encouragement, Nathan! 🙂
Oh thank you for the post!!!
This did always cross my mind. You're words of encouragement put me at ease.
wow–thx, Nathan! I was actually struggling w/this very problem and telling myself your very words. Natch it works better when hearing it from a "pro"~ ;p
I don't disagree with you in any way Nathan, but like you have said in the recent past. We are dreamers. It is really, really, really hard to keep those thoughts out of my head. I try but by nature I am an extremely competitive person. I'll just have to do like you said and face off with that guy in the mirror. As usual, you chimed in with a post when it was needed.
15,000? Pfft. That's nothin' Try writing screenplays. The estimate there is 50,000 per year.
See? I just made your job seem easier. 😀
*ducks flying tomatoes, and possibly copies of Jacob Wonderbar*
Its really difficult to be supportive to other aspiring authors and still not view them as competition. I struggle with that because I know how much I enjoy writing and I appreciate others who share that joy. And when people post cheerful announcements of manuscript requests I grit my teeth and type congratulations. Jealousy is an ugly thing.
josin-
Ha! True, though I actually get at least 1,000 of those screenplay submissions a year myself even though I don't rep them.
I needed to read that. Sometimes thinking about the competition out there is very discouraging. It's nice to be reminded to focus on my own work 😉
On a day when one could be discouraged…say, because your youngest is home sick with diarrhea and your water company tells you AFTER they've turned the water off, "No water all day for maintenance,"…your post gives me a warm fuzzy inside. Or possibly, I'm getting the crud too.
Either way, you are so supportive. Thanks!
I was in the workshop that Kristin wrote about. It really is daunting to hear that her agency gets over one hundred queries a day — 36,000 a year — and of those they only request about 600 partials. I think the request for fulls is in the double digits.
It's tough.
But instead of thinking about the odds of failing, you put your head down and keep writing. Hard work and perseverance sometimes have a way of making all those scary numbers go away.
I needed to hear that. Thanks.
That was a kind and generous thing to say. Thank you.
Focus internally for your own writing and always wish others the best. It's NOT a competition 🙂
http://www.damselinadirtydress.com
Thanks for the salve.
I think I might have to somewhat disagree with Mr. Bransford on this. Excellent writers are getting turned away at the gates every day, either by paranoid publishers who won't buy anything that isn't a guaranteed commercial blockbuster, and they'll even buy sub-par writing with commercial concepts, hoping or even counting on the fact that audiences these days are less and less discerning about the quality of writing out there. They tell otherwise great authors, authors who have agents even, that while their work is enjoyable and well-written, it isn't "suited to the market" right now. This translates to: "Your name isn't Stephenie Meyer or Snookie, so we're gonna have to pass."
It isn't enough to be an excellent writer. You have to have your excellent book be deemed suitable for "the market," which as we know is changing daily and is being controlled by an industry that is by and large terrified of those changes and loathe to depart from its wasteful excesses of yesterday.
Not to say that I don't believe in the publishing industry's ability to right itself. But let's not kid ourselves here. If all it took to get published was to write an awesome book and be an amazing writer, well … Twilight. Need I say more?
Though I will add that I will not let anything stop me from getting my work published. I believe in it, and I believe it will find an audience and I believe I will only become better the more I continue to write. But I make no illusions about who all the key players are in this fight to the top. And it isn't just me.
allison-
What I'm saying is that Snooki's book deal does not mean that someone else then doesn't get a book deal. That's not the way it works. The number of books publishers publish, and the number of books readers read is elastic, not static.
It's obviously not endlessly elastic, and there are books that get crowded out and overlooked, but it's completely outside of an author's control.