I fell into an interesting hole in Bluesky: people who are aware the publishing gig is rigged. I’ll elaborate on my experiences and observations.

I wrote a book, Simon Peter, which is an atheist take on the life of Jesus as the leader of a death cult. I did a bunch of research into cult leaders and concluded along the way, yeah, this had legs. The life of Jesus – taken without the theological flourishes of the past couple of thousand years – follows the typical patterns of a death cult. A charismatic leader who vacillates about their divinity, but as his followers grow to believe it, he becomes bolder in expressing his godhead while preaching the end is near while antagonizing the government and forcing them into an apocalyptic showdown. It follows the same overall pattern as David Koresh, L. Ron Hubbard, Joseph Smith, Jim Jones, and countless others. While doing my investigation, I also found other parallels that historical death cult messiahs had with each other but missing from Christianity. Mainly that they were deeply disturbed people, usually suffering severe childhood abuse (often sexual in nature,) and that death cult messiahs almost always got around to sexually abusing their followers. I came to believe (and still do) that you can see hints of this in the official record of Christianity (which I believe has about as much credibility as the Scientology website about L. Ron Hubbard.) Specifically, the dismissal of marriage and the fixation on fallen women are extremely common in messianic death cults.

Artistically, I also decided to write the followers of Jesus as being like the working-class people I grew up with—I would write them like fishermen and construction workers. As a matter of style, it was written as noir.

My market research concluded this was a solid plan. The US had, at the time, about twenty million avowed atheists, and it is my experience, backed by research, that they like it when someone goes at Christianity with a battle ax. Those twenty million atheists are also some of the most active readers in the United States.

This, I concluded, must be a slam dunk. My previous forays into publishing were of the “this is too niche to be successful” variety. Oh, I thought it was bullshit, but what good does it do to argue with publishers and agents? But this time, I did the market research. I had the data. I knew who I was writing for, knew they liked the kind of book I was writing, and I knew they bought books. (By this time, I had long since passed the point of wondering if my artistry was of professional quality.)

I spent a year in research, a year in writing and editing, and a year shipping it. I can’t confirm the actual number of attempts, but certainly in the dozens and perhaps as many as a hundred. Most of the time, the rejections were vague. If you’ve been there, you know, this isn’t for us, good luck somewhere else, blah, blah, blah.  Still, patterns emerged.  They were broken down into two general forms. The first was the “I don’t think it’s a good book” variety, and the second was the “I don’t think it’ll sell” variety.  I did get some more specific feedback.

An editor from a major publishing house contacted me about Simon Peter. He wrote that he loved the book, but he’d never be able to convince his bosses to publish it. I wrote back, “What about my market research? It’s a very publishable book with a clearly identified audience on a subject they will absolutely, positively enjoy.” He said that was irrelevant, that the subject was just too extreme.  Market research be damned.

The other most significant rejection was from a big agent who said, “They didn’t talk that way back then.” Now, normally, when someone says they don’t like your book, all you can do is shrug. Even the best book is loved by a small number of the total number of readers in the world. But the form of the criticism was just so fucking stupid. Yes, obviously they didn’t talk “like that” back then. They spoke in Syrian fucking Aramaic! And the specific word that she objected to was “fuck.” Which, I should note, is a good Roman word found in graffiti all over the Roman world, including Roman Judea.  They very definitely spoke like that.

Even more than my market research being consistently ignored in rejections – many of them claiming without the evidence they demanded of me that it had no market – that stung. If she’d just said, “I don’t represent books with so much vulgarity and sex,” I would have shrugged. Like I said, you can’t do much when someone doesn’t like your book. But instead, she attempted to argue there was something objectively wrong with Simon Peter. It wasn’t that she didn’t like it, but I was wrong.

Then, I stopped shipping my book. I saw what was happening. I was wasting my time. The people who rejected it on the grounds that it wasn’t marketable ignored my market research. Others were willing to elevate their personal tastes to the point of objective quality to dismiss what could have easily been a profitable book. All those other rejection notices throughout my writing career took on new weight because I had done everything “right,” the way I had been told to do it.

As most artists do, at first, I believed that I needed to work on my artistry, to develop a unique style and voice, and write with excellence. That wasn’t enough. I was too niche. OK, says I, I’ll write something marketable. So, I went down to the library and did the market research. I identified a market that I felt I could serve and wrote a book to sell to that market. That was also insufficient.

You might know I don’t mind doing a little research by now. So, I started to look at the bios of successful modern writers. At the time, Dan Simmons was pretty big. I learned that he had an Ivy League education and was a friend of Harlan Ellison’s. China Miéville is descended from English nobility and has a Ph.D from the London School of Economics – the UK’s version of the Ivy League. Alastair Reynolds, a Ph.D in astrophysics. Kim Stanley Robinson, a Ph.D in English. Neal Stephenson comes from a family of science professors and has a BA from the University of Boston, an Ivy League school. Vernor Vinge was a professor in mathematics and computer programming at a major California university. This is just a list of the people I was reading when I was researching and writing Simon Peter. It was clear that their biographies had a certain… look. They all came from socially advantaged backgrounds and usually attended high-status universities, often with advanced degrees. Of course, it’s not universally true. Charles Stross got his start very modestly. Suzanne Collins was an Air Force brat (albeit an officer’s brat.) And sci-fi is egalitarian compared to literary fiction!

Then, more research. Yeah, I got into it! You look at the bios of agents, publishers, editors… they also have a certain look. Almost all of them are based in New York City. Almost all of them have Ivy League educations. Almost all of them have affluent backgrounds. They run the social gamut from A to B. And, of course, they have the same kind of backgrounds and educations as most of the writers they promote.

Shit. I’m just a guy who loves to write. No education to brag about, no family connections, just a poor fat kid from a trailer park. I don’t know anyone in New York City, and, honestly, I don’t want to be beholden to these hypocritical New York elite assholes. I know that’s pride, fucking with me, but perhaps it is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.

Then I looked into the numbers. Well, I tried. Publishers don’t really let people know how big the slush pile is, but my calculations led me to think that the number of unsolicited manuscripts that major publishers accept is somewhere between 1 in 1000 and 1 in 10,000. And at that level, quality doesn’t matter. Even if you’re in the top 1% and assuming the process filters for quality, that still makes the odds of getting published somewhere between 1% and 10%. There is no reason to believe that quality matters on the slush pile, anyway. Readers – usually unpaid interns – do little more than glance at manuscripts, and their first selection criteria is punctuation and grammar. (1) Seriously. You look at all that shitty advice on how to get published, they stress the importance of grammatical perfection because they know that slush pile readers are looking for any reason to move on to the next manuscript. It is considered an unpleasant job performed so publishers can pretend they care about the community or whatever the fuck they tell themselves.

While all of this was going on, my partner was getting her Ph.D in applied mathematics. Her support has been constant, but she noticed before I did the differences between how science does publishing and how the arts do. In science, there is a structured way to advance. Yes, there are gatekeepers along the way – teachers, thesis committees, review boards, funding agencies, etc. – but how you get from where you are to your destination is clearly laid out, and they have many mentors to help them.  No such things exist in the arts. Indeed, publishers say one thing and do another. Authors are told, “If you write well, someone will see your quality.” But both my research and experience say that’s bullshit. (2) Sometimes, they say, “You should do your market research,” but that didn’t work for me, either, nor for any indie writer I’ve ever known. They don’t say that it is best to come from a rich family, go to the same schools that the publishers do, and know people in the industry.  Nowadays, they want you to come with an already existing social media network to minimize their financial risks but also, I am sure, to give themselves another reason to say “no” to writers who don’t fit their profile.  (If I had the kind of social media presence they demanded of writers, why would I even need them?)

That’s what galls me. If they were honest that they were looking – almost exclusively – for well-to-do college grads in their social circle, well, writers could plan for it. They could criticize the system for racism and classism. Such honesty would be the kind of thing people could organize against.

I know the very reason they don’t say that is because to admit it demands change. The bastards are gaslighting young and indie writers. The system is designed so that it’s always your fault. You don’t have perfect grammar! You aren’t good artistically! You didn’t do your market research! Even as you look, teeth clenched, as one more shitty book goes big because the writer’s parents were college professors, we’re being told that’s unrelated to their success! Your failures are never because you’re the wrong kind of person, that they’re looking for people like them, not like you. It’s straight-up gaslighting.

I wish I could have some great call to action. I don’t. The Internet was supposed to free information, but it has led to massive media consolidation. In the current rentier Internet economy, it is simply not possible for enough people to get together to make a serious change. Some of you will disagree and I pray you’re right, but I will also require some proof that there is systematic change possible inside the publishing space. It’ll take a new system, I just don’t know what it is. (3) But I hope someone finds my experiences and research illuminating. That some young writer who is facing down another rejection finds this and goes, “They’re gaslighting me.”

Notes

(1) Which also works against poor people and people of color. It’s a form of gatekeeping that requires writers to have a highly specific education. You could write with great beauty, have amazing stories of immense social significance, but if you come from a shitty school district from a poor family? You’re fucked.

(2) As does the anecdotes of every indie writer I’ve ever met, even though they hesitate to talk shit about the business. Why that’s the case… I mean, I might write a post about that on Monday. It’s a bit of a rollercoaster why even now, most indie writers hesitate to call publishers on their shit.

(3) It might sound like I’m being negative, but it’s how I am positive. You can’t fix things without first identifying the problem. The arts will never be egalitarian without recognizing that the system is corrupt. It can’t be fixed by hoping that someday the editors and agents and publishers will change. They won’t. They must be made to change or removed, their companies shuttered, and their works brought to nothing. Trying to fix this system is trying to stop a fire covered in kerosene. They will burn you alive or offer to put out your fire only if you obey.