I came to this article in a fit of frustration as an aspiring male author. I'm a decent writer, with a few unfinished novels nearing completion. I'm starting to investigate the publishing world and have found that the number of "women only" submission guidelines at agencies and publishing companies is quite high. I took this as par for the course given the justifiable social momentum of such things. Today, I was perusing the top ten NYT Best sellers and half of that list is Reese's Book Club recommendations. Oprah 2.0. That's cool, I thought. I always liked Reese Witherspoon, and she seems to be a decent human. I wonder what the submission process is for her book club? So I checked it out. Only for women. And I get it, I guess. But it was truly disheartening. I'm never going to complain about being a straight white male, because I know the game has been rigged for me. But, as someone who has the stated life goal of becoming a successful novelist, it is a new experience to encounter directed discrimination against me. My beliefs are as follows:
If you don't include diversity, differing opinions, and broad thinking in your writing then you're a bad writer. But, driving diversity as a plot point is just going to create bad writing. Write a good story, mindfully.
Where are you finding these "women only" guidelines? There are still a lot of men in publishing.
I don't think publishing is strongly anti-male, but it's extremely tribal. If you don't find people who will extend favors to get you around the system that doesn't work, and in access to the secret inner system that does work, you will get absolutely nowhere.
It so happens that upper-middle-class neurotypical white women are the best at the tribal game, but it wasn't planned that way.
The real answer, I think, is that publishing isn't a meritocracy, doesn't want to be, and doesn't need to be. They don't need to find the best writers; they're able to fulfill their business model with good enough writers. There isn't more to it.
Where I saw it most was with agencies, and it was by no means the majority, just enough that I saw a trend. Tribalism is well ascribed. Disappointing that it isn’t merit based, I’d always believed that good writing was the silver bullet. Marketability now, I guess.
"Where I saw it most was with agencies, and it was by no means the majority, just enough that I saw a trend."
That I buy, but I don't know if it's misandry as opposed to regular mean-girling. As in, I think women who don't fit their tribal definitions of "cool" also have no shot. I'm guessing 57-year-old female elementary teachers from Nebraska are just as screwed as men if they're looking for literary agents, because a 57-year-old woman also does not "look like" a promising writer to them.
"How do I find the secret inner system people?"
Fuck if I know. I'd guess that it's nearly impossible, to be honest. You have millions of people trying to reach hundreds—it's gonna get shitty.
To start, you have to get to the point where you don't query agents, or publishers. You don't query the serious people—you can't. You lose their respect immediately. You have to find a way to make them see you as an equal. How do you do that, if there's no reason for them to think you're... anything? I don't know. And then you have to make them think the thing you need them to do is their idea—also difficult.
If I weren't autistic, I would have stayed in trading, retired around the age I am now, and self-funded the whole process. Fuck, I'd build a publishing house and do it right. But I don't have that kind of money.
My guess is that the best way is to get into a _top_ MFA program. Don't go without a fellowship and a stipend, because it might lead to nothing. If you're recognized by the professors as a top student, you can get introductions that might actually matter. Even still, though, you need a series of breaks in your favor.
Querying... won't win you respect. It just won't. You're saying, "I'll take the lowest slot you've got, because otherwise I get nothing." If your goal is just to be minimally published, go ahead, but it'll take years and lead to disappointment, most likely.
Self-publishing... can work, but only if you achieve outlier success. If you're an average self-publisher (i.e., someone who built a business around their writing and had the business fail) then, again, you've spent all that time for nothing.
Personal introductions, maybe? I think old-school network-crawling, if it's still possible, might be the way to go. It's still going to have a high failure rate, though. Asking people for introductions to literary agents is going to lead to more lost friendships than introductions, in most cases. Writing is definitely not a pay-it-forward culture. The zero-sum mentality is fierce. Which is a shame, because it's not zero-sum, and readers are losing under the current system.
The vast majority of authors get tiny advances, minimal marketing budgets, and no real publicity... and are expected to be grateful for this, because the alternative is the outer darkness. To get a real deal, you need an agent with clout and she needs to go to bat for you. That's rare, and you don't get it through the query process.
To be treated in publishing like an equal rather than a supplicant requires getting around the query system to one of the few agents who can make real deals happen. This is extremely difficult and, without personal connections, it's basically impossible.
I came to this article in a fit of frustration as an aspiring male author. I'm a decent writer, with a few unfinished novels nearing completion. I'm starting to investigate the publishing world and have found that the number of "women only" submission guidelines at agencies and publishing companies is quite high. I took this as par for the course given the justifiable social momentum of such things. Today, I was perusing the top ten NYT Best sellers and half of that list is Reese's Book Club recommendations. Oprah 2.0. That's cool, I thought. I always liked Reese Witherspoon, and she seems to be a decent human. I wonder what the submission process is for her book club? So I checked it out. Only for women. And I get it, I guess. But it was truly disheartening. I'm never going to complain about being a straight white male, because I know the game has been rigged for me. But, as someone who has the stated life goal of becoming a successful novelist, it is a new experience to encounter directed discrimination against me. My beliefs are as follows:
If you don't include diversity, differing opinions, and broad thinking in your writing then you're a bad writer. But, driving diversity as a plot point is just going to create bad writing. Write a good story, mindfully.
Where are you finding these "women only" guidelines? There are still a lot of men in publishing.
I don't think publishing is strongly anti-male, but it's extremely tribal. If you don't find people who will extend favors to get you around the system that doesn't work, and in access to the secret inner system that does work, you will get absolutely nowhere.
It so happens that upper-middle-class neurotypical white women are the best at the tribal game, but it wasn't planned that way.
The real answer, I think, is that publishing isn't a meritocracy, doesn't want to be, and doesn't need to be. They don't need to find the best writers; they're able to fulfill their business model with good enough writers. There isn't more to it.
Where I saw it most was with agencies, and it was by no means the majority, just enough that I saw a trend. Tribalism is well ascribed. Disappointing that it isn’t merit based, I’d always believed that good writing was the silver bullet. Marketability now, I guess.
How do I find the secret inner system people?
"Where I saw it most was with agencies, and it was by no means the majority, just enough that I saw a trend."
That I buy, but I don't know if it's misandry as opposed to regular mean-girling. As in, I think women who don't fit their tribal definitions of "cool" also have no shot. I'm guessing 57-year-old female elementary teachers from Nebraska are just as screwed as men if they're looking for literary agents, because a 57-year-old woman also does not "look like" a promising writer to them.
"How do I find the secret inner system people?"
Fuck if I know. I'd guess that it's nearly impossible, to be honest. You have millions of people trying to reach hundreds—it's gonna get shitty.
To start, you have to get to the point where you don't query agents, or publishers. You don't query the serious people—you can't. You lose their respect immediately. You have to find a way to make them see you as an equal. How do you do that, if there's no reason for them to think you're... anything? I don't know. And then you have to make them think the thing you need them to do is their idea—also difficult.
If I weren't autistic, I would have stayed in trading, retired around the age I am now, and self-funded the whole process. Fuck, I'd build a publishing house and do it right. But I don't have that kind of money.
My guess is that the best way is to get into a _top_ MFA program. Don't go without a fellowship and a stipend, because it might lead to nothing. If you're recognized by the professors as a top student, you can get introductions that might actually matter. Even still, though, you need a series of breaks in your favor.
Querying... won't win you respect. It just won't. You're saying, "I'll take the lowest slot you've got, because otherwise I get nothing." If your goal is just to be minimally published, go ahead, but it'll take years and lead to disappointment, most likely.
Self-publishing... can work, but only if you achieve outlier success. If you're an average self-publisher (i.e., someone who built a business around their writing and had the business fail) then, again, you've spent all that time for nothing.
Personal introductions, maybe? I think old-school network-crawling, if it's still possible, might be the way to go. It's still going to have a high failure rate, though. Asking people for introductions to literary agents is going to lead to more lost friendships than introductions, in most cases. Writing is definitely not a pay-it-forward culture. The zero-sum mentality is fierce. Which is a shame, because it's not zero-sum, and readers are losing under the current system.
What do you mean querying won’t win you respect? It’s how the majority of authors have their agents
The vast majority of authors get tiny advances, minimal marketing budgets, and no real publicity... and are expected to be grateful for this, because the alternative is the outer darkness. To get a real deal, you need an agent with clout and she needs to go to bat for you. That's rare, and you don't get it through the query process.
To be treated in publishing like an equal rather than a supplicant requires getting around the query system to one of the few agents who can make real deals happen. This is extremely difficult and, without personal connections, it's basically impossible.
Can you define “real deal” and “agent with clout”?