The Slush Bubble: Red Flags All Over Publishing
To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson, "Caveat Scriptor, Motherfuckers"
Publishing’s culture requires authors—whether self-publishing or backed by traditional corporate houses—to don a cloak of perpetual positivity, to show gratitude for even the smallest opportunity, and to downplay the difficulty of playing a game where most people lose. The ugly reality is that the market-clearing price for a new book by an unknown author is negative—unless you develop a reputation, which most writers never do, you’ll have to pay or suffer to get it read. No one has found a solution to this problem. Mandatory positivity breeds misinformation; this, plus the intrinsic difficulty of the problem, results in ordinary people pouring thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars into fruitless endeavors.
The math of the slush pile is grim. Millions of people believe they could be top-billing writers. A few thousand truly have the talent; most will go undiscovered. The only way to tell who’s good is to read their work, and no one who has reach has the time. Careers are allocated or denied by people who stopped reading for pleasure fifteen years ago. This is a familiar ugliness, getting worse every day—it’s bad for writers, but it’s good for certain businesses. Vanity presses—which hold authors responsible for publishing costs (not inherently unethical) and often exaggerate the career value of their support (which is the issue)—proliferate. It is hard to make reliable profits by scamming readers; aspiring authors are much easier marks. Traditional publishing likes to present itself as ethically superior: “Money flows to the author” is presented as a law of publishing physics rather than wishful thinking. We’ll discuss this.
At the same time, discovery processes for new literature are almost certain to continue on the reversion to the historical norm of self-publishing. Traditional publishing has quietly abandoned epic fantasy; even established authors are being “asked” to curtail word counts, and new series will not be found or developed at all. Most forecasts suggest that it will cease discovering or developing new authors in literary fiction in the early 2030s. There is also debate over whether male authors can get into the system at all. (The answer is that, yes, they can—MFA pipelines still work for men, and trust-fund boys still have no trouble getting published—but querying will never work. Slush-pile rescues, however, exist only for the industry’s optics—to present the illusion of an industry invested in fairness—and there is no optical benefit in choosing a man.) As traditional publishing’s tactical retreat continues, though, the number of slots for slush-pile rescues will drop from ten or twenty per year to five or six per generation. Authors today might wish to gain institutional support, but if they are serious, they should prepare to self-publish, because relying on the institutions we’ve got is planning to fail. Still, self-publishing is complicated and expensive. In order to be effective—and not lose thousands of dollars per lesson—they will need to learn the business.
Unfortunately, we cannot dismiss traditional publishing as irrelevant. Haughty, unaccountable, and effete? Sure. Dead? Not even close. As a business, it is doing just fine, and its retreat from new author discovery will only strengthen it. The advantages traditionally published lead titles have over “other books” are considerable: prestige, distribution, award campaigns, targeted publicity, and access to the top editors and designers. The playing field isn’t simply tilted against outsider talent—it’s an actively hostile war zone. If you seek traditional publishing, expect your efforts to go nowhere and to never know why—in the query process, you are indistinguishable from millions of others who want those same unfair advantages and insist they will be bestsellers with just a little help. On the other hand, if you self-publish, you should expect it to be exhausting and expensive. The best I can hope for, on your behalf, is that it not be so painful or expensive that you drop out.
Personal Account
I have written a literary fantasy called Farisa’s Crossing that weighs in at 450,000 words and cannot be significantly cut—430,000 might be possible—without doing structural damage. There are a dozen reasons why this novel is too ambitious for a traditional publisher to “let” a first-time author write it, but the word count alone is disqualifying. I would be laughed at—the novel’s literary value is irrelevant; it would never be read. It is assumed that the percentage of first-time novelists who can pull off a work of that size and complexity is close to zero. It may be, but it is not zero; I am proof.
If you’re planning to self-publish, you must hire an editor—at least one professional who is not you must see the work before it goes out. No excuses. “I produce clean copy.” So do I—probably cleaner than yours—and I will tell you that I make at least one mistake per 750 words. “I don’t want my voice changed.” Then reject edits that break your voice. “It costs a lot of money.” That one, sadly, is true. Editing is serious work and it merits serious pay, but… writer beware.
I would avoid Reedsy; the “project protection” is a joke and not worth the markup. I would avoid hiring an editor who has any clients in traditional publishing at the same time as you—if time pressure forces her to “crash” one of her projects, she’d rather lose Random Author than Random House. I would avoid editors at both ends of the price range; at the bottom, you’re likely to get unqualified work, whereas at the top, you’re probably paying for a name and can expect mediocre service. I would categorically avoid editors who refuse phone calls or charge for them—it suggests they produce work they cannot stand behind, and use shyness as an excuse to avoid face time; there is also a very high chance that one is dealing with a “ghost editor” who trades on her name but outsources the work. Last of all, I would advise you, if you can, to split the project into pieces—about $750 each—and not pay for the next until you’ve reviewed the work.
Should You Hire an Editor? What Kinds of Editing?
I’m going to focus on fiction, because it’s my specialty, and because nonfiction has too many subgenres (e.g., biography) with very specific editing requirements to which any advice I might give would not apply. We’ll assume that most authors fall into three categories, with hybridization rare but sometimes tenable:
Traditionally published authors and aspirants. They either have institutional support or seek it; they will keep querying until they are selected for representation, and eventual publication, or they die trying. (Most will die trying.) Most people who do secure book deals will find themselves still on the outside; the standard package comes with minimal support, and transition to lead-title status—at which point, truly being published, rather than simply printed, begins—is rare. Still, the fantasy of miraculous discovery keeps people going.
High-frequency self-publishers. These are authors who publish four or more novels per year. There’s no prestige in this business, but it’s lucrative. I am not going to judge people for what they write—or how they write. These authors tend to focus on genres where high editorial quality is not required, but the books should be professional enough not to draw negative reviews. This is a momentum strategy—lots of “small books,” with five- or six-figure annual revenue possible over time if the author has the hustle—and it works. It isn’t my game, but I have nothing against it. This is also what most people in traditional publishing think all of self-publishing is.
Low-frequency self-publishers. Some authors refuse to consider a book complete after two drafts; they’ll do seven or eight to get everything right. Productivity here is measured in years per book, not books per year. We are talking about artistic (as opposed to commercial) fiction; I avoid the terms “literary” and “genre” because that is a false dichotomy designed to elevate literary-the-genre over other genres. Traditional publishing has long insisted that it’s the only home for artistic fiction, but this is less true every year. One decade ago, “prestige self-publishing” would have been called an oxymoron—there was quality self-published work, of course, but no prestige in it. However, considering traditional publishing’s loss of interest in so many fanbases—epic fantasy, hard science fiction, literary fiction by 2030—it will be inevitable that authors, even of high repute, must learn to become their own publishers. Financially, low-frequency self-publishing is where books get riskiest—there’s high investment per title, and no real ability to run momentum strategies.
Where one resides determines which editing services one should purchase. Let us discuss the three tiers of editing, as the industry commonly defines them:
developmental (or structural) editing pertains to story arcs, characterization, and other “big picture” issues. This is the least labor-intensive of the three tiers, but it’s also the most expensive—and, for many authors, unnecessary.
line editing focuses on sentence- and paragraph-level concerns. Does the writing flow? Is the voice consistent? Do sentence length and vocabulary vary reasonably, but not wildly? This is probably the most subtle level, because there are no hard rules, but it determines 70% of what readers and editors “feel” as good versus bad writing.
copy editing is the least glamorous and cheapest editing service, but arguably the most important, because a book with poor grammar and spelling will be considered unprofessional. If you can only afford one editing pass, hire for this one. It is especially necessary because you cannot do it for yourself—no matter how good you are, there is some percentage of your mistakes to which you are blind.
Which editing services, as an author, should you buy? I can’t make that decision for you, but I can give guidelines. Let’s focus on the three categories of authors—the traditionally published and the innumerable seekers; high-frequency self-publishers, and low-frequency self-publishers—above.
Before 2020, conventional wisdom was that if you were planning to seek traditional publishing, you didn’t need to hire outside editors at all. To spend $4,000 on a developmental edit for a novel that will either (a) still never get picked up, or (b) would likely receive another (conflicting) developmental edit from the publisher, was considered a waste of money. Copy and line edits were likewise seen as unnecessary at the query stage. Agents said they were willing to look past minor flaws; this isn’t entirely false, but it would be unwise to test their patience. Therefore, while no one inside the industry wants to admit this, most successful querying authors do, in fact, purchase editing services for their manuscripts before they enter the process. The reason it is socially unacceptable to discuss this is that querying is supposed to be free of charge—that is literally the only good thing that has ever been said, or could be said, about it.
My advice? If you’re querying, do not spend money on a full-manuscript edit. Most queried books, no matter how well written or polished, go straight into the shredder. That said, in order to compete against those who have had their querying materials fully polished, do this: get your first four chapters (often, agents start in Chapter 3) and your last two chapters professionally copy and line edited, because every decision that will affect your career will be based on these—everything else will be skimmed until after a book deal is offered (or declined) and an advance is determined. Also, and this is non-negotiable, have your query letter and supporting materials professionally reviewed—this stuff is far more important than the manuscript. Paying $250 for a query letter that might get you in the door? Worth considering. $4,000 for a full structural edit, at this stage? No. The most important thing to know about querying is that you can do everything right and there is still a very high probability that you lose—don’t invest a dollar in it that you can’t afford, because paying for a premium lottery ticket is still usually a bad gamble.
This covers trade. High-frequency self-publishers—trust me on this—generally do not invest thousands of dollars per book in developmental editing. They don’t need it. For one thing, they usually know their genre well due to prior experience; furthermore, a flop is survivable for someone who publishes six books per year. However, most authors in this category do hire copy editors, because while this kind of work doesn’t hold literary prestige, we are talking about serious professionals who believe their readers are owed a certain quality of work. I am not really qualified at all to give any advice to these authors—they’re all running separate businesses, operating under different parameters, which they know far better than I do. However, I’m going to bet that very few of them spend more than $10,000 on editing services per year—certainly, they don’t spend that amount on a single book. So who, exactly, does?
We come to the third category—low-frequency self-publishers. We have everyone here from the vain pretenders to the genius outcasts who are, in total obscurity, writing the decade’s best work. Motivations here are diverse. There are some who believe, despite the odds, they’ll profit on the first book. There are some who don’t mind a financial loss, but want to be remembered after they die. There are some who want to become high-frequency self-publishers but lack hustle. There are some who want traditional publishing but lack even the minimal talent necessary to clear its bar. And then there are some, at the top of the talent arc, who know they are writing serious, ambitious books—the kind traditionally published authors aren’t allowed to write until they join the double-digit club (10+ weeks on the bestseller list) and sometimes not even then—and who want to be able to compete fairly against traditionally published lead titles, but know they’re at a massive disadvantage. This is the danger zone. This is where the temptation to spend $25,000 on a developmental edit from someone who worked on Game of Thrones or The Hunger Games comes into play.
Here are my personal views. I say this as someone with a 450,000-word literary fantasy—a fifty-pound golden sword of a book—who is facing serious editing costs and cannot afford to make mistakes.
Copy editing—worth it? Absolutely. We all have recurring errors or stylistic quirks (which may be worth keeping, but it must be a conscious decision) wired into our brains, to which we are blind. You can’t do the final pass yourself. Hire someone good, pay them well. If you’re lucky, they’ll spot the occasional lingering line- or story-level issue, but don’t count on this.
Line editing—worth it? Maybe. I don’t think line editing has a major direct effect on sales; it will, however, influence the reception of your work and your reputation as a writer—this is the skill set that is optional in commercial writing but mandatory in artistic fiction, including upmarket genre fiction. If you’re at all serious about writing at a literary level, you’ll learn how to line edit yourself—you won’t need someone else for this. Still, another pair of eyes helps. Copy editors find the stuff you might never find, due to personal idiolect and manuscript blindness, and this is why they’re absolutely necessary. Line editors find improvements you’d also find if you had three months of “cold time” between revision passes—but sometimes you don’t have that luxury. This is a time–money trade-off. You can do your own line edits—if you’re a serious literary author, probably better than anyone else can do them for you, because you understand your own voice—but, at some point, it becomes more efficient to hire someone else rather than wait three months and do another pass.
Developmental (or structural) editing—worth it? Probably not. Before I offend people, I must explain that there are different kinds of structural editing, all serving different purposes. There are cases in which this sort of edit makes the difference between a bestseller and a flop. Does this mean, in general, that it’s worth it to pay $14,500 for the editor of The Hunger Games to tell you that the love interest needs a subplot that doesn’t involve being the love interest? No. You should, instead, learn enough craft that you already know that sort of thing.
To go into detail on developmental editing, we must discuss the different types of structural editors that exist. If you’re going to spend thousands of dollars, you ought to know which kind you’re getting.
The institutional editor. Think Maxwell Perkins, Toni Morrison, Michael Pietsch. They edit you when you become—and help you stay—“an institution.” You don’t need one to break out, but I suspect they become necessary deuteragonists for the few authors who become celebrities, as the temptations of fame build—they remind you that craft still matters, that six months of partying will cost you 35 IQ points (30 recoverable, at a rate of 1.25 per month), and that you’re only as good as your last book. They know exactly who sits on the jury for each award and exactly what your novel must include to win each vote. Ninety-nine percent of traditionally published people never get this “dream editor,” and you stand no chance at all of finding her on the market—she hasn’t taken a cold call since you were in preschool.
The book doctor. Celebrities are great at selling books, but terrible at writing them. Turning 80,000 words of word vomit into coherent nonfiction is challenging; to do so in fiction requires immense skill. These people are highly paid by traditional publishers to take names “that deserve to have books” and words written by people with those names and turn those names into books. Real authors neither need nor want them—at this point, you’re pretty close to hiring a ghostwriter—but, from the perspective of publishers’ sales and celebrities’ reputations, they are absolutely worth their immense fees. The existence of these people—and the real market need they represent—is why developmental editing costs so much.
The book shrinker. Big books are expensive to make. Traditional publishing has favored minimalism for a long time; if this trend is reversed, it will be led by self-publishers. Book shrinkers don’t do full-scale rewrites, but they cut—mercilessly. Authors dread this process, and very few would put up with it if they had the option to say no. What the book shrinker does is collect all the features that the author considers artistically necessary, but that are deemed unlikely to be missed by an average reader, and tells the author either to cut them all, or pick one. The result is an artistically lesser book, but it is cheaper to print and its sales will not be lessened significantly by the removals, because readers won’t know (it is theorized) what was taken out if the cutting is done right. If the book breaks out, “deleted excerpts” can be released for further profit. Of course, if this job is done badly, the book breaks.
The market whisperer. Are teenage werewolves in or out this year? Which tropes generate good buzz on TikTok, and which ones generate good-bad buzz, and which ones generate bad-bad buzz? No one knows for sure, but some people know better than others and quite a few, I suspect, know better than I. At their best, market whisperers find minimally invasive changes to books that quintuple their sales performance. At their worst, they force catastrophic rewrites that turn potential landmark novels into flops. I don’t think anyone is sure which is the case until years after it happened; in either case, the author’s career is decided by then.
Sensitivity readers and content raters. While market whisperers assess what a book can do in the best case, these editors focus on worst-case scenarios. Who might become offended by what? Is there a risk of backlash or cancellation? Content raters are necessary for books targeting young readers; they are not usually used for adult fiction.
Confidence architects. Traditional publishing has established processes for breaking authors down and (sometimes) building them back up, just as militaries do. But would you believe me if I told you that writers often don’t need to be broken down to become insecure—that we do it on our own? The confidence architect is a paid high-status reader who will make suggestions but is largely there to give permission—to say, yes, this can go out without one more round of revisions… since one more, as we know, tends to become seven.
Developmental editing, within traditional publishing, tends to be a mix of #3, #4, and #5. #1 ain’t gonna happen; we covered that. As a non-celebrity, you don’t typically get into publishing (exceptions exist) if you need a book doctor, so forget about #2. You’ll face #5 if your work touches on identity politics or hot political issues. Otherwise, the order of operations tends to be #4, then #3. The market whisperers tell the authors what to add, which will add 10–30% to word count, but since manuscripts do not get accepted unless they are already inside a very narrow band, a book shrinker is employed to trim it back down. Sometimes two different professionals do this job; sometimes, one person does both. Function #6 is also important in traditional publishing—the house doesn’t want a gloomy author on launch day—but it is not usually considered part of editing. So, in sum, developmental editors within traditional publishing focus first on eliminating backlash vectors, second on exploiting market opportunities, and third on trimming word counts so production costs do not exceed what the publisher is willing to spend on you. As a self-publisher, do you want any of this? Maybe. It won’t increase the artistic value of your work, but it might improve your profit margin. However, developmental editing is extremely expensive. If you need it, as a self-publisher, you’re in trouble.
Still, the lesson is not that developmental editing is bad or that you should never hire someone to do it. If you have a specific target—e.g., you want to know “the right way” to increase or decrease your word count by 40%, or you want to adapt your adult fantasy novel for a YA audience, and you’ve never written YA before—then it is probably worth the price. Can a developmental editor substitute for learning craft on your own? Absolutely not. You will find yourself overpaying for what are simply opinions. Can a developmental editor help you make complex book-level changes efficiently? Yes.
I’ll use Farisa’s Crossing, my absurdly ambitious 450,000-word literary fantasy, as an example and discuss what a developmental editor at a traditional publisher would likely do. Word count would be the first target—it would be demanded that I split the book into three, and a developmental editor’s objectivity would be useful in finding natural “split points.” Each of the books, in today’s climate, would further be cut to about 100,000 words—traditional publishing still prefers minimalism and, if you want institutional support, you cannot resist it. However, in the case of Farisa’s Crossing, this would be a mistake, because maximalism is artistically correct for this novel—it is Farisa’s story, the way Farisa would tell it. If you do not see Farisa’s childhood, you will never understand the moral choices she makes at the novel’s climax. Does traditional publishing care about these sorts of things, though? In 2025? The answer isn’t entirely no, but it’s mostly not yes. Many of the people inside publishing houses really do want to produce great art; however, they operate under constraints, and the decisions that actually determine an author’s career (e.g., advance, print run, marketing budget) are made by people for whom artistic merit is at best an afterthought.
All this said, a developmental edit with a defined objective is probably worth paying for, if you believe the editor has the skills to pull it off. Is it worth it to spend 5 cents per word in the hope that a big-name developmental editor will “just make everything better?” Absolutely not. If you have talent, you don’t need that person. If you don’t have talent, then nothing you spend will matter.
I believe we’ve covered all cases. In sum, if you’re seeking traditional publishing, be selective in what editing services you purchase—the query letter review is essential, and line editing for the first four and last two chapters might improve your odds, but don’t spend more on an edit that will be redone if the book is published. If you’re a high-frequency self-publisher, you know your business better than I do and you do not need my advice. If you’re a low-frequency self-publisher, you must hire a copy editor and you may want to hire a line editor, but you should only hire a developmental editor for specific, targeted work—in the general case, you do not need one.
The Red Flags Go On For Miles
In publishing, fall foliage is no longer limited to October. From a high enough vantage point and with the right kind of eyes, you can see orange and yellow and red flags stretching all the way to the foothills.
As I mentioned, I’m in the search process for a final-round editor for Farisa’s Crossing. Rates are up. This isn’t a bad thing; inflation is real, and I don’t mind paying for quality. At the same time, a number of editors have confessed that they are booked out for months. This is alarming. The number of manuscripts that can benefit from paid editing is not that high.
The slush pile and false hope are great for business, as vanity press has known forever. The slush business seems to be in a bubble. A slush bubble. A slubble. We are in the Great Slubble of the 2020s. Authors must be watchful.
Yellow Flag: “Manuscript Critique” Services
If you hire a freelance editor, get an edit. So many editors are offering low-priced alternatives that cost half the price of a real edit, but aren’t worth it at all. I’m talking about “manuscript critique” and “book coaching” and “strategy call” services. Stay away from all that noise. The hope that drives authors to buy these services is that the editor will fall in love with the manuscript and offer a discounted (or free) edit. I won’t say that this never happens, but I suspect that it’s extremely rare. Paying a high-status person to read your book does not guarantee that they’ll like it; if anything, it facilitates the opposite, although the opinion you will get will not be usefully critical, because, again, you’re not hiring an editor, though you are dealing with someone who would like you to buy future services.
Authors who invest in these services that aren’t edits often believe that, after a favorable response, they’re allowed to request introductions to agents, publicists, or more affordable editors. This is called “crossing the line” and it tends to get an author blacklisted. When you hire editors, expect to get only what you pay for. Alas, well-connected and famous editors know that authors expect these serendipities—or, at least, consider them possible—and therefore can charge four times the rate they would otherwise command.
If you want an edit, hire an editor. If you want a “book coach,” use ChatGPT.
Orange Flag: Agents Who Also Edit
Literary agents are not yet allowed—I don’t think it’s illegal, but it would be professionally damaging, and probably result in job loss—to offer paid editing services directly to their clients. It would be an obvious abuse of power, as the offer could not be refused. Still, nothing prohibits literary agents from offering services to other aspiring authors, including the terminally unagented hopefuls.
This creates a messy situation. If an agent offered representation—or favorable referral, or some other way around the infinite slush pile—in exchange for editing services, she would be derided for setting up a pay-for-play operation. What is allowed is to set up a pay-for-no-play operation. She still gets to charge several times the market rate for services—because she’s a literary agent, because she might break the rules and put in a favorable word somewhere—but she’s under no obligation to do so. On the contrary, the contract says, “No guarantee of representation, current or future, has been made.” This makes it totally ethical, right? The author has been told to expect nothing and, 99% of the time, nothing is delivered. The author still gets to buy that 1% chance (while thinking it’s a much higher chance) that the agent loves a client manuscript so much, she breaks the rules and grants a favor.
The usual result is shoddy work. The author knew he was paying for a name, right? Well, says the industry, he should have. The odds of any real favor being granted, though nonzero, are lousy. Querying also has awful odds, but at least it doesn’t cost thousands of dollars—at least, not yet.
Furthermore, you don’t want an editor who’s also a literary agent. The jobs are too different. If she’s an agent, she’ll be too busy and her attention will be too fragmented for her to do a proper edit. Equally, her clients wouldn’t be happy if they found out she was spending time editing random riffraff (which, from their perspective, you are) instead of focusing on them. In short, don’t hire an industry insider—you’re paying for a name. Hire a competent editor; if you get one, try hard to keep her.
Red Flag: Agents Expecting Paid Edits Before Submission
Cold emails are humiliating. They force the writer to admit to himself that his life has not turned out the way it was supposed to, that his talents have not been sufficient to marshal the social resources necessary to get warm introductions, and that he must now rely on the professional equivalent of a “kick me” sign to get attention for long enough to make a request—which can be safely ignored. These are especially painful for writers, who still believe on some level that it must be possible, if one were just more clever, to write one’s way out of the low social status that cold emails signify, even though this is almost never the case. Query letters, with their mandatory positivity and pointless personalization—pointless because 95 percent will result in ghosting or form-letter rejections with not five words read—are especially hellish, not a simple generic underworld but one specifically made to punish writers for the sin of existing. The query letter is an institution whose whole point is to reduce the author to ad copy.
Traditional publishing knows all this. Agents and publishers know that authors live under perennial threat of return to the pointless nightmare of the slush pile and, therefore, can never refuse “requests.” If you don’t believe this is exploited, read everything I have ever written three times. Authors start writing because they believe it is a path to self-employment, but if traditional publishing is involved, they will experience most of the downsides of employment—in particular, the need to withstand unjust power relationships with unreasonable grace—but none of the protections. People go into traditional publishing—or, at least, spend years trying to get in—because of what the industry says it is; almost no one would consider it if informed of what it actually is.
As I’ve said, an agent who required clients to purchase her own editing services would be unlikely to last long. Traditional publishing still values its perceived moral high ground over the detested vanity presses. There is no rule, however, that prohibits an agent from demanding that submitting authors pay for editorial services more generally, and I’ve been told that this is increasingly the case. Agents are no longer satisfied believing the work is complete and reasonably polished; they want to know who was hired, and for what. We’ve already gone over why it makes neither financial nor artistic sense to pay for a whole-manuscript edit if seeking traditional publishing—all the work will be redone in-house—but we haven’t discussed the incentives of the agents. If they require querying authors to pay for their chance (their very slim chance) the price of a full edit, it will generate work for their friends.
And So…?
The road is not wide enough for the millions of people who believe they are a few thousand words from fame, fortune, immortality. There is no forward, flowing traffic; there is a sprawling crowd. People forced off the pavement fall into ditches and bogs and learn too late that they should have stayed home. No one is coming to sort this out. No one is coming to save you. Make writing a business, or don’t. Make writing art, or don’t. I have no right to tell you what rules you ought to follow. Just try… not to be a mark. It’s what you want, and it’s what I want for you. You can pay high-status people to say things that make you feel less insecure and it can even work for a good fourteen minutes or so, but it doesn’t last. The insecurity—a trait of writers that is leveraged against them by traditional publishing even after they become wealthy and renowned, and that new industries are learning how to exploit in self-publishers—cannot be bought away; you must learn to sit with it. The Great Slubble of the 2020s—which may extend into the 2030s—might prove to be a significant wealth transfer. If you’re an author, you’re on the side slated to lose. So be careful.