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Avocado ([info]white_serpent) wrote in [info]otf_wank,
@ 2009-04-17 16:05:00


Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:authorwank, elitism, publishing, special snowflake syndrome

But why isn't your book selling?
It's all the fault of literary agents, who are single-handedly destroying literature everywhere!

Excerpt:

The substantial and nearly unassailable wall that separates you from us has been under construction for decades. You can find the names of its architects and gatekeepers on your telephone-callers list, and in your email in-box. They are the literary agents—that league of intellectual-property purveyors who bring you every new manuscript you ever see, those men and women who are so anxious to gain access to the caverns of treasure they believe you sit upon like some great golden goose that they would likely hack one another’s heads off were they not united by one self-serving mission: to ensure that quality fiction never hits your desk.

Just a tiny bit of entitlement, elitism, and self-delusion.

And some responses...


(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]orangecrush
2009-04-18 01:15 am UTC (link)
I reiterate about the baggage: her novel that no one will look at is apparently about a woman's journey of weight loss and discovery—since she has to thin herself down in order compete with an idealized dead woman—as she falls in love with an emotionally abusive man who is hot because he treats her like shit. Someone please tell me I'm misreading that. Holy what.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]tez
2009-04-18 01:19 am UTC (link)
....................................................oh what the hell.

I can't parse that. I read it four times and I still cannot parse it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]orangecrush
2009-04-18 01:22 am UTC (link)
My grammar might've been broken. My brain surely was.

BUT LET US CURSE THOSE AGENTS WHO DON'T THINK THIS BOOK WILL SELL. CUUUUUURSE THEM.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]kosaginolegion
2009-04-18 03:21 am UTC (link)
I can parse it. I just wish I couldn't.

Yeah, obviously a best seller. *backs away*

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]feenix
2009-04-18 05:34 am UTC (link)
I can.

MISOGYNY MISOGYNY MISOGYNY MISOGYNY MISOGYNY

Did I do a good job at it?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]persona
2009-04-18 05:51 am UTC (link)
Beat me to the punch!

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]inarticulate
2009-04-18 01:44 am UTC (link)
By turns comic and moving—and ultimately deeply inspiring—this latest novel by an award-winning writer of fiction and non-fiction will resonate with anyone who has ever tried to extinguish a moment of misery by reaching for a chocolate bar.

I'm not sure what chocolate bars have to do with weight obsessions and emotional abuse, but okay!

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]zara_zero
2009-04-18 03:25 am UTC (link)
...Are you serious? I'm not saying the summary doesn't sound ridiculous (it does!) but honestly? For an emotional eater, quite a lot

Well, unless they don't like chocolate and prefer other foods, but ehh - you know what I mean.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]inarticulate
2009-04-18 03:43 am UTC (link)
Well, I don't think everyone who reaches for a chocolate bar in a moment of misery qualifies as an emotional eater. And I also don't think all emotional eaters are attracted to abusive guys. I could be wrong, though.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]zara_zero, 2009-04-18 04:01 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]inarticulate, 2009-04-18 04:04 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]zara_zero, 2009-04-18 04:06 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]zara_zero, 2009-04-18 04:03 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]inarticulate, 2009-04-18 04:08 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]zara_zero, 2009-04-18 04:10 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]zara_zero, 2009-04-18 04:24 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]seiberwing, 2009-04-18 02:05 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]ladybirdsleeps, 2009-04-18 04:34 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]caito, 2009-04-18 07:46 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]napalmnacey, 2009-04-18 11:25 pm UTC

[info]julian_black
2009-04-18 11:59 pm UTC (link)
I managed to make it through the first three pages (just barely). There was nothing remotely comic in those three pages, and the only thing that was moving--well, let's just say the book would have been moving right back onto the shelf were I browsing it in a bookstore. The writing is competent, but pedestrian--hardly what I'd expect from a "literary" writer. The first sentence is utter crap; I'd reject it on that basis alone. Nothing that happens feels believable, and the protagonist is pathetic and unlikeable.

As I read it I thought, "This is an id-book. This is a book where all of the author's most deeply suppressed psychological issues come exploding out all over the page, and she can't see them even as she's writing them." The Twilight series are all id-books. So is Anne Rice's Violin (okay, everything by AR is, but that one is back-away-slowly-before-it-eats-your-face crazy). I get embarrassed when people engage in inappropriate oversharing about their bodily functions, and id-books have a similar effect. Author, I so did not need to know that about you.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]ecchaniz0r
2009-04-19 12:32 am UTC (link)
That is an EXCELLENT description for such a book. Can I adopt the term? It could totally also apply to OH GOD ISSUES OH GOD fanfic too - idfic - and it's so very very a propos.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]singe, 2009-04-19 05:56 am UTC

[info]dragonfangirl
2009-04-20 02:00 pm UTC (link)
The book would be moving as I threw it across the room, most likely.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]catmoran
2009-04-20 02:47 pm UTC (link)
I read the first couple pages, and came away with a deep desire to kick the protagonist in the ass. Repeatedly.

I'd kick the doctor in the ass too, but he's so one dimensional I don't think my foot would make contact.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]hallidae
2009-04-18 02:35 am UTC (link)
This commenter on the literary agent rant puts it so much more eloquently than I could (mostly, because my response right now amounts to "Is she fucking shitting us?"):



If you consider yourself part of the generation of writers we readers are losing, I’m afraid I won’t mourn your absence. The first few chapters of the novel you linked to read as chick-lit, not literary fiction, and tired chick-lit at that. Does the world really need another novel about a fat female protagonist with self-esteem issues who is ultimately redeemed by losing weight? The writing is clunky and bogs down frequently in overblown description. I suspect the reason you haven’t been able to sell this lies with you, rather than with the business model of the publishing world.

In short: more practice-writing, less windmill-tilting.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]dragonfangirl
2009-04-20 02:01 pm UTC (link)
*wince* I like how women's literature is being used as an insult here.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]white_serpent
2009-04-21 08:12 am UTC (link)
I read it a bit more as "You only think it's so much better than chick-lit because you know zilch about chick-lit. You've got something that might have been fresh and new 15 years ago, but is now trite. People aren't going to accept self-esteem issues and weight loss as the entirety of a book today; you need more than that."

(Kind of like: in the beginning of science fiction, you might have been able to get away with "We went to space and found ALIENS! ZOMG!" Today, the reaction would be, "Yeah, and...?")

It's background detail; it's not a book.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]dragonfangirl, 2009-04-22 01:19 am UTC

[info]visp
2009-04-23 07:20 pm UTC (link)
Women's Literature isn't chick lit.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]bobafeis
2009-04-18 07:33 am UTC (link)
Dude, that'll totally be a bestseller. In fact, I'm calling it now: that'll be the new Twilight.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]eleutheria
2009-04-19 12:32 am UTC (link)
You read my mind. My first thought was "okay, so Bella's out of the picture somehow (idealized dead woman) and she's hot for Edward who treats her like shit".

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]ecchaniz0r
2009-04-18 02:37 pm UTC (link)
Wow, that's actually misogynistic enough that I sorts wonder why it HASN'T been picked up and pushed by someone with as many issues as her. Seriously, that is like the PERFECT way for an equally-bigoted man or woman to push an agenda.

She must be a deeply shitty writer. That, and it's a TROPE SANDWICH, but -

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]issendai
2009-04-19 03:11 am UTC (link)
Because we already have Jemima J, which is weight issues crossed with Cyrano instead of Rebecca, and which contains more than enough weight-issue gluck to keep the publishing industry sated for another five years, at least?

...No, you're right. It's surprising that no one's grabbed this as a fixer-upper.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]jupiterpluvius
2009-04-19 06:25 pm UTC (link)
There are literally dozens of recent books like that--Jemima J is just the only one that's been a best-seller in the last few years.

Seriously, the reason nobody wants to buy her book is because it's a hackalicious treatment of old old tropes, not because it's New! and Ground-Breaking!

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]moonjaguar
2009-04-19 12:15 am UTC (link)
All I got out of it was main character is fat, female, smokes, frumpy, old and baww but not yet thirty and her kids are brats and bawww and her husband is gray and has a peculiar haircut and they drive a turd-colored Plymouth Caravelle. Oh yeah, there's the creepy doctor with bad hair who's supposed to be hot and there's the Norwegian hairstylist with the complicated accent. So when do the zombies start mall-crawling and Bella Swan come to town?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]tarash
2009-04-19 01:37 pm UTC (link)
What I found jarring is how the hairstylist RANDOMLY goes from having no accent to having trouble with English. I think it was a random switch, I'm not going back to check.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]moonjaguar, 2009-04-19 02:01 pm UTC

[info]northen_light36
2009-04-24 01:52 am UTC (link)
Sounds like Twilight... with weight issues.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


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