"It's good, but we can't market it. If you were already famous in some other way so we could sell based on that, we would buy it."
Could have phrased it better, but I kinda get it.
this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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"It's good, but we're bad at actually selling books so we need you to be famous in another unrelated way to compensate for our incompetence"
FTFY
At least they know their failings and wont waste the authors time.
"they" don't though. The low level employee/intern who read it might but that entire industry is up its own ass smelling it's own farts at the top.
No you didn't. People don't buy the memoirs of random people. The publisher can move heaven and Earth but people still wouldn't change the fact that the audience will never exist
Sure they do, all the time, as long as it's an interesting story.
More than half of the books on this list are by "random" ie, non famous people.
Who said anything about memoirs? The thing about "the memoirs of random people" is not that they were written by non-famous people - it's that they are about non-famous people.
What about the people who were only famous for writing?
Remember Oprah and a million little pieces. I'm pretty sure that guy was a complete unknown before he made that shit up.
"We won't publish you until you've been published"
Think about it
I thought this was an entry level publishing
Yes
You can be other kinds of famous. An athlete, youtuber, etc. Even if youre trying to sell speculative fiction, some traction somewhere helps the process.
But yeah, it's shitty. It's really hard to make any money writing now.
So you run it by James Paterson, Inc. (or the estate of Tom Clancy or whoever fits best) get his name above yours and now you're contracted to release new novels at an absolutely breakneck pace,, but you have your foot in the door and can become the more famous writer who can release their own novels.
I would've thought "finding fresh talent" is something that publishers do out of self-interest, but I guess I'm wrong.
I can’t have a job because I don’t have enough experience. I don’t have experience because I don’t have a job.
You're supposed to devote yourself to a year long unpaid internship. Bills? Who cares, you have to live like a slave.
"Bills? Who cares, you have to live like a slave."
Don't be silly. No-one is expecting you to live like a slave in order to do an unpaid internship — that would hardly be conducive to outputting good work anyway.
No, no — obviously you're meant to rely on your family's wealth.
Oh, you don't have family wealth to rely on? Okay, well the simple solution is to just not do the unpaid internship if you can't afford it. And if that means you aren't able to secure a paid position, due to lack of experience, then that just shows that the system works! After all, we have to keep the riff-raff out somehow
Was it an autobiography?
Lots and lots of anecdotes online about aspiring authors being denied publishing because they don't have a pre-established following. It's a sad state of affairs
Isn't the publisher's job to advertise the book, get people to know it?
That sounds hard, just have a popular YouTube channel or Insta or something.
Book publishers have become so risk adverse that they really do only established stuff then they have a limit for everything else. It’s hard to even get established stuff translated from other countries.
Given the extremely tiny cost of digital distribution, I think this would be reason enough to never even bother talking to "publishers."
Sure but if you wanted to do it as a career, you’d need them.
The book selling business is killing books. It's so expensive to buy a new book today that I don't even bother looking. Long live the old books stores and public libraries!
It’s a reasonable concern for a publisher. A book being good doesn’t necessarily sell books. But having a famous name on it does.
You can be a master with 30 years experience in something like pottery, but you will make less money than an amateur who started doing pottery this year who has even a moderate Instagram following if you don't have any social media presence.
You have to whore yourself to the masses if you want to make money in art or literature.
Instructions unclear. I've literally whored myself to the masses and I don't know how to make pottery.
But you probably made lots of money. :)
Money?
Maybe the real money was the diseases we caught along the way
You should've watched "Ghost". Whoring yourself AND pottery.
*angry upvote*
You have to whore yourself to the masses if you want to make money in art or literature.
I think that has been the case since forever maybe. Most people use the verb to market because it sounds less awful, but it's not like a medieval painter got a job without having made a name for themself. Same for dancers, actors, scriptwriters etc. It is much easier to sell people people food and beer and sweaters and baskets and whatnot. Marketing your work is as essential to running your business (= making a living) as managing finances. I can understand you don't like this, but it's not really been different.
Isn't it literally the publisher's job to figure out how to turn a good book into a marketable book?
No. It's their job to make money. If they don't think you'll make them money they won't waste resources on you.
So they're bad at making money, noted
This is what ghost writing is for. The publisher just slaps “Peter Andre” on the cover, the readers get to do “Leo-pointing-at-the-television”, everybody wins.
What's especially dumb about this is that Tom is an excellent writer. Villager is wonderful.
He's talking about his friend who is trying to get started, not himself
So he is. It's been a long day...