Lystra Wrote

The first thing the convention taught me was that I am not alone. As much as I read about the overwhelming number of query letters agents receive every day, how many times I hear about the thousands of manuscripts in slush piles overflowing out the doors and windows of publishing offices. There is nothing like a convention room filled to the brim with writers to illustrate how desperate my situation is. These writers, who I am sure believe in their work as much as I believe in mine, all paid their hard earned money, money they didn’t earn writing, to be there. THERE WERE HUNDREDS OF US IN THAT ROOM. Hundreds, who like me crossed great distances and spent extravagant amounts of money to get a few precious moments with an agent. Writers are not in short supply.

I wondered what would happen if every person in that room had a brilliant masterpiece, a novel of unequalled quality, the magnum opus of their genre in our time would the agents be able to take them all? Would they all get published? I believe that the sad answer to that question is no. There are too many of us for all our talent to be recognized. The system cannot take everything it is offered, no matter how good it is.

Luckily, I am sure that only a handful of the people in that room had good stories. Right? That is what they would have you believe, that is how the system is set up. But I don’t know. I heard a lot of pitches, both practicing with strangers and overhearing the guys and gals in front of me and I liked most of the story ideas I heard. I am sure that a lot of people in that crowd had mediocre stories or mediocre writing skills and they will be rightfully culled from the herd. Won’t they? Again I am not sure. I have read a lot of really bad books, and I know you have too.

The system cannot guarantee that it will discover all the talented writers nor can it weed out the untalented. So I have to wonder how does one succeed in such a fundamentally flawed establishment? The only answer I have is luck. You have to get lucky, bottom line. It sounds bad right? But it isn’t as bad as all that. You can work with luck.

What is that? You ask.

Work with luck? How is that possible?

Sit back and listen to the Nevada boy.

LUCK IS ODDS. Odds are probability. Probability is a mathematical equation. Equations are manipulated through the use of variables.

Here are the variables: Number of books published and the number of submissions received.

If the givens are that your work is good enough to be published the more you submit or query the better the odds are you will be published. I warn you the odds are really shitty to start out with, but I’ve pulled to an inside strait with no outs, if the pot is right, you just have to go for it. (I do not mean to spam query or do anything stupid or rude that will get you blackballed in the publishing world, I am only saying, query or submit to every available and viable source.)

You see what I mean?

So here is the pot. Your work being read, and enjoyed, by a person you’ve never met.

I hear so many people talking about wanting to see their names on the cover, or their book on a shelf at Barnes and Noble, or just seeing their work in print.

I think all that stuff is awesome, but it isn’t what I am writing for. I am writing to entertain people with my stories, as many people as I possibly can.

So with that illustrious pot piled up on the table before me, I’m going all in, and seeing where the cards take me.