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rainwatersparkIt's been 6 months since I started querying, and I haven't heard anything about my outstanding queries for what feels like forever. I feel like I've become numb to it all, although there are two agents who have my query/full who are opening back up to queries next month, so I feel like I might get responses from them soon? Maybe???
Nearly every book I've read over the past month has been, quite honestly, poorly written. I know this is a controversial opinion, but I honestly think that the reason many books haven't sold that well this year is that they're just badly written. It's usually hard to say books are "objectively" bad, but I have read so many recently published books that have:
- stiff, wooden, unrealistic dialogue
- tons of telling rather than showing (including infodumping)
- action scenes that consist of vague summaries
- POV jumps from third-person limited to omniscient within the same scene
- plots that consist of a sequence of events coincidentally happening to the protagonist
And like, sure, on some level, I've known for a while that writing skill doesn't matter to publishers as much as a "marketable" premise. But this is a whole other level of "writing skill doesn't matter."
It's honestly demoralizing, thinking about how this is the kind of garbage agents/publishers think they can make money on and pride in improving the craft doesn't matter to them. I've also been feeling uninspired on the writing front after reading trash book after trash book.
On a more uplifting note, though, I'm a little more at peace with my desire to self-publish this book if it dies in the query trenches. I've seen enough horror stories from authors who have had bad experiences with editors/publishers not marketing their books that I'm more okay with a situation in which I have more control over this book specifically - a book that I have a very specific vision for, know the specific audience I'm targeting, and have a dream cover artist for.
Nearly every book I've read over the past month has been, quite honestly, poorly written. I know this is a controversial opinion, but I honestly think that the reason many books haven't sold that well this year is that they're just badly written. It's usually hard to say books are "objectively" bad, but I have read so many recently published books that have:
- stiff, wooden, unrealistic dialogue
- tons of telling rather than showing (including infodumping)
- action scenes that consist of vague summaries
- POV jumps from third-person limited to omniscient within the same scene
- plots that consist of a sequence of events coincidentally happening to the protagonist
And like, sure, on some level, I've known for a while that writing skill doesn't matter to publishers as much as a "marketable" premise. But this is a whole other level of "writing skill doesn't matter."
It's honestly demoralizing, thinking about how this is the kind of garbage agents/publishers think they can make money on and pride in improving the craft doesn't matter to them. I've also been feeling uninspired on the writing front after reading trash book after trash book.
On a more uplifting note, though, I'm a little more at peace with my desire to self-publish this book if it dies in the query trenches. I've seen enough horror stories from authors who have had bad experiences with editors/publishers not marketing their books that I'm more okay with a situation in which I have more control over this book specifically - a book that I have a very specific vision for, know the specific audience I'm targeting, and have a dream cover artist for.
