Pebbles, Pachinko, and Publishing

Today a friend of mine wrote in an AbsoluteWrite.com forum: “…I have the choice to work my way up the ladder and let my confidence grow with my skills.”

Well, yes and no. This is the foundation myth of many new writers, and of many lower-tier publishers: first submit to lesser markets and gain credibility as you go to higher and higher markets. I am totally for confidence-building exercises. I am also for reasoned analysis of one’s writing skills and the markets that might fit them.

But folks, please, please do not fall victim to the strategy of blindly ‘working your way up the ladder.’ All you have done is send your work to lesser markets, without knowing how well it might have done in better ones.

In commercial publishing, it’s better to aim your writing at high markets and work your way down, than the reverse. (Do what you will in self-publishing, since you will be taking on not only the role of publisher but marketing director.)

I know some amazing small (and often low-paying) markets I’d submit to in a flash, because I like the people involved AND a sale there would look great as a publishing credit. There are others I will never bother with, because their low payment ratio isn’t balanced by market credibility. A sale there is only good for my shallow ego, not my long-term career goals.

I know of several authors who submitted brilliant novels to frankly sub-par publishers, either because they didn’t do their research or they were afraid to send their work to the Big Five or reputable smaller publishers. All of these books should be selling in mega-thousands of copies, be on the NY Times lists, and be known to the general public. The best-selling author of the group has maybe sold 5000 copies of his first two novels in two years. The others have sold a few hundred copies, and one says they got their rights back after two years and an $8 or $9 royalty check. All because they discounted their skill and chose publishers who either could not or would not reach the broader markets.

They didn’t work from the top down.

I’ll use a physical sciences example because it is dramatic and obvious: let’s play Pebble Pachinko.

Let’s say you are separating sand from gravel bits, and using progressively-smaller sieve meshes for the separation. The largest sieve holds back the largest pebbles. The smallest sieve will catch the sand grains. Everything in between will find its own separation point on a specific sieve.

Now think of that in terms of publishing. The finest sand grains are the slush-piles and the rejected stories that nobody buys. Your story is a mid-sized pebble, bouncing down through smaller and smaller sieves. If you have slotted in the largest meshes at the top (the biggest, best-paying, most prestigious publishers), your pebble-story might land there, or a couple of layers down. That’s up to the quality of your writing (which you can improve) and the luck of the market/editor’s bad day (about which you can do nothing.)

Ah, but if you remove those top sieve layers, then the pebble-story will stop at the very next mesh too small to let it pass. That could be a great small market – or a mediocre one delighted at snagging some good-quality work out of the slush-pile.

You have not given your story a fair try. Out of fear of public perception and rejection, you deliberately removed yourself from the higher markets.

Fear is often healthy. It’s a survival mechanism to keep us from doing stupid things. But you won’t get eaten by a tiger, if you send a story to a top market and the editors don’t like it. You’ll get no response, or a rejection letter. Maybe a little veiled online snark. But you want to be a published writer, so that means putting some of yourself out there for public scrutiny. You can learn to handle it, laugh it off, and learn from it.

Go play Pachinko with your stories and see where they land.

Edited To Add: My friend Kate Lowell has a good rebuttal over on her Blunt Instrument blog. She’s not wrong, and she has brought up the fear of rejection that all too often cripples new writers. I promise to chew on the topic some more.