This is about New Leaf, who dropkicked a bunch of clients into the cold via email, but there is a larger lesson here that should be taught far more often: an agent/agency working hard for some authors does not automatically translate to them doing the same for all their authors.
If you’re new to the publishing industry and/or the agenting process it’s perfectly reasonable to assume if an agent has a list of a bunch of successful clients and/or great recommendations from those clients that you’d be a fool not to sign with them. Except not necessarily.
There are a lot of agents and agencies who do not treat their clients equally. An offer of rep is sadly not always a promise to do so. Often two authors can and will have completely different experiences with the same agent/agency at the exact same time.
Another publishing thing that is always worth talking about is how when a book fails commercially it is universally framed as the author’s failure and hung on them and their career/future and pretty much never framed as the publisher failed to do their job marketing the book.
A traditionally published book’s commercial failure is always perceived from this imaginary baseline that every reader in the world was aware of the book and decided not to buy it instead of the truth in 99.9% of cases: the publisher simply didn’t let anyone know the book exists.
Authors are judged book to book. How one book does can drastically affect your career. Publishers are judged on an overall bottom line largely based on their few “hits.” Their individual performance marketing a single book is never discussed/considered when a book doesn’t sell.
Hey, who's up for a relatively low-stakes tale of pain, humiliation, vandalism, and retail theft involving me that is absolutely 99% my wife Nikki's fault and if she tells you any differently she is a LIAR? It's story time! Mute if you hate long stories!
So, Nikki and some of her friends in her office are trying to eat a little healthier at work, and in said effort they alternate preparing and bringing in breakfast and lunches for each other. It is a good thing, and I support it.
Today was supposed to be one of Nikki's days, and we meant to food prep for it yesterday. Got all the stuff at the beginning of the weekend. Sunday came and we didn't do it. The reasons may be erotic in nature. It's unimportant to the story.
So I want to share a real moment I had a little while ago. This'll be a brief thread about despair and resolve. You might find some value in it. You might not. I dunno. I'm putting it down for me.
I spent today breaking story/worldbuilding stuff for a new game. Because that's my job. Then I finished working on book edits. Because that's also my job. I did a bunch of house stuff, and then I finally settled in to rework this pilot script I finished earlier this year.
I've been trying to finish reworking this script for months? Maybe? It keeps getting put off because of all the other stuff on my plate, and I have to prioritize it last because altho there is INTEREST (I hate that concept with existential fury) there is nothing definite yet.
Thinking about @Lexialex's Very Accurate Thread from the other day about women made to look like bad fighters and reinforce shitty tropes in move fight scenes. Quick thread here on big movie fights that IMHO don't do that and why I like them/think they work.
@Lexialex (TW for cinematic violence, particularly fight scenes involving women. If that's not your bag feel free to mute this thread or unfollow.)
@Lexialex I've always loved loved LOVED the way Linda Hamilton's fights were choreographed in T2. They center around one of my guiding principles for outsized people in fights/defending themselves: pick up something solid and bash a mofo.
Hey, who wants to read a story about @Upwork fucking over freelancers in order to upsell their clients on unnecessary services the clients don't want and can't afford? Strap in!
So after my marketing agency closed I started freelancing again. A marketing company that wanted to work with me only hires freelance writers through @Upwork. So I signed up. I wasn't thrilled about it, but that's who they contract with and it's their marketing company.
I've been receiving regular assignments from this company, thru @Upwork, for over a month now. I've written dozens of articles for them. My work has been exemplary. I've been handling repeated rush jobs and delivering. The client was and is very happy. That's coming from them.