Writing Updates and Publishing

I wanted to take the opportunity to herald a new book that’s been in the works for several years and is now published: Boondoggle is a sci-fi for young adults and is now on Amazon and Barnes & Noble! It was an entertaining and insightful experience co-authoring this book alongside Tom Easton, and I’m glad it was able to finally be published. This also marks the first time I’ve been published via traditional publishing, which is neat. For more information about the book, the Out of Time series, Amazing Stories, David Brin, and other related authors, check out the links here and here.

Speaking of traditional publishing, I’ve finally started shopping the sequel to Not James around to agents. It’s a long, tedious, and oftentimes fruitless process, but I keep my hope propped up (and my expectations low (lol)). Regardless of the prospect of it being picked up by an agent or publisher, this can be considered a prelude to the sequel being published either traditionally or by myself in the near future. Stay tuned for that!

Some other updates on my writing: after a streak of completing NaNoWriMo since 2014, I regret to say I was unable to hit the 50,000 words last November. That said, I did write a solid chunk (upwards of 20,000 words) during the time, so it wasn’t just me being lazy or anything like that. I promise. Of what I wrote, some of it was editing that aforementioned sequel, and some was continuing another fantasy story that is heavily isekai-inspired. I still have yet to reach an endpoint for that first draft, but it is promising and likely to be my next project to focus on.

Back to speaking of traditional publishing, I want to be honest about what I think and feel about it. It’s not great. That’s right, I buried the lede for this blog post. Kind of. It’s taboo to badmouth entertainment industries (such as publishing) because doing so can put you on bad terms with such industries (such as publishers). The thing is, I don’t want to be a sellout (at least, not completely). The most immediate example I can think of for this is the YouTuber Chris Stuckman. He’s a movie reviewer, and more recently he’s entered the arena of filmmaking and has directed a film called Shelby Oaks that is scheduled for wide release at some point. Since his work on the film began, his reviews have been biased towards positives and compliments. Based on his own words in a pseudo-review of Madame Web, he basically refused to review it and stated he would be avoiding reviewing things that would likely have more negatives than positives. I think that’s fair, since he’s honest about it; I disagree with shuttering one’s opinions (particularly in an area where opinions are meant to be given (i.e., reviews)), but it’s also fair since he runs the risk of making the prospect of debuting a film that much harder. And, as he knows and has said, being the one actually making films rather than just critiquing them gives a different perspective that deserves recognition and respect. I more or less agree with this perspective. Yet (here’s what this whole prelude has been building up to), I think there are some things—with traditional publishing—that are worthy of criticism.

To get the obvious complaint out of the way, the process is arbitrary. Whether it’s an agent or publisher, being picked up by either is arbitrary. That was, is, and how it will be and it’s an inevitable, unfortunate feature of publishing. To what degree it’s arbitrary is more debatable, and that can be ascertained more reliably through the particular requirements an agent or publisher has listed for their submission system. It varies case by case, though some examples of things I personally disapprove of are irrelevant, useless, or discriminatory criteria. I don’t think answering the question, “Why were you the one to write this story?” is a worthwhile criterion to respond to when querying. I also don’t think, “What author do you admire?” or such similar questions are worthwhile (yes, some agents/publishers have these questions as a requirement for their submissions). If it has nothing to do with the story being queried, the basic biographic information of the author(s) of said story, and the story’s likely marketability, I think it’s safe to say it’s a degree of arbitrariness that can and should be expunged. Regarding discriminatory criteria, this doesn’t really have to do with the genres, plots, or characters agents/publishers may specialize or focus on (e.g., “I want young adult or middle grade, particularly urban fantasy”). It has to do with “inclusivity” and “diversity” statements. To be blunt, these read as the opposite of what these words mean. Such statements tend to assure equal opportunity for hopeful queries, especially for minorities. In other words, some people are more equal than others. To me, that’s a turn-off and I’m likely to pass on querying such agents/publishers due to likely racism, sexism, or other forms of bias in their choosing of stories to represent/publish.

Another thing I’d like to critique is turnaround times and responses to queries. It is a very unfortunate practice for either an agent or publisher to not respond to a query submission. At all. That, to me, is wrong. I understand there are heaps upon heaps of submissions being sent daily, hourly, etc., and there is vanishingly little time to respond to every single one. Because rejections are par for the course and make up 99.99999% (or whatever majority number) of submissions, a lack of response is also par for the course. This open-ended form of rejection that can easily be confused with extended turnaround times that may be upwards of 6 months is ridiculous (in my humble opinion). I get not responding to someone who didn’t follow the submission requirements, but if someone were to submit a query, following every required criterion, I think that person deserves, at least, a notice of rejection that could simply amount to, “It’s a no from me.” I can’t really think of any other profession where unresponsiveness is an admissible feature for the worker. Of course, agents/publishers aren’t actually being paid for reviewing query submissions they reject, but come on; it’s unprofessional to signal your services and fail a basic follow-up. And regarding the turnaround times, these can’t easily be helped, but they are annoying if not inconvenient for writers. I think a possible fix that could address extensive wait periods before a response as well as the aforementioned silly lack of responses would be submission periods. Magazines and publishers of short stories tend to have limited times available for when something can be submitted, and they tend to have more prompt response times thanks to not having to endure an ever-churning flood of submissions year-round. That seems do-able.

Keep in mind, all I’ve complained about here relates to the first part of the publishing process—that is, writers waiting upwards of 6 months to even hear about whether an agent/publisher is interested in a story. After that, there is another wait time for agents/publishers to review a full draft (or maybe not even that, just an excerpt of the first few pages/chapters and then the full manuscript), and then another wait time for possible rewrites, and then another wait time for blah, blah, blah. I’d estimate the time it’d take for something to be traditionally published on average being around 3 years. As a point of reference, the publishing process for Boondoggle was roughly 4 years. If I were to sum up traditional publishing in one word, it’d be…

Wait.

On the off chance an agent/publisher might actually be reading this, they might be thinking, “Oh, yeah? Well, who is this punk, anyway? He’s some random nobody airing gripes in the ether of the internet, what he says and thinks doesn’t matter!” Fair enough, I can’t really argue that. I can argue that, based on observations, traditional publishing has a bad rap. To what extent does that matter, I also don’t know or can’t really argue. Agents and traditional publishers very well may not be experiencing any difficulties—after all, they continue to receive mountains of query submissions. Beyond just complaining (which I’ll emphasize is primarily what I’m doing here), I’d like to offer this food for thought: a business running on a model that stirs resentment in those providing the means of production could—key word could—lose its means of production. I very much doubt problems with traditional publishing will amount to a rebellion alike The Boston Tea Party or a Katniss Everdeen situation, but writers can and do opt out of traditional publishing. Do they get the same success as traditional publishing? Ha, hardly. In several cases they do, but, yeah…

Anyway, there are other random speculative criticisms I have with traditional publishing that have to do with trend-chasing while paradoxically wanting “original” stories, however I’ve ranted as much as I liked to here. I didn’t really comment on the bureaucratic red tape involved with traditional publishing that’s further along in the publishing process since I don’t have much experience with that, but I can imagine there are plenty more criticisms to give related to such things (e.g., things like authors disagreeing with a book cover, blurb, or something else that the publisher chooses). A recent, related, and fortunate example of this I discovered was about the 2024 movie Wicked in which the actor Ariana Grande saved the song Popular from the composer, lyricist, and producer Stephen Schwartz’s idea to give the song a modern hip-hop version. I am very grateful Ariana Grande disagreed and that his idea did not last. That’s all for updates. Stuff is happening, and stuff will continue to happen. Yeah!