Catastrophe; July 11 2022

Publishing is a slow industry. Slower than ever, these days – Covid effectively gummed up the works in every business, so it’s the worst possible time to be impatient while querying or going on submission with a book.

I don’t think anyone outside the ‘writer’s online world’ understands how non-lucrative this business is. I’ve heard it said that a quick way to make a buck is to write a book, but I’ve never actually seen that work for anyone, ever. Even the big name authors had to wait, and work, and work more and wait more and wait again.

A lot of authors seem to forget – or maybe don’t know – that agents have to go through that waiting process, too. But when agents forget that… Oof.

Today, the news came out that a literary agency shut themselves down, abruptly and completely. They left their contracted authors high and dry with no warning. Allegedly (though this is through the grapevine) the reason for this was that the submission process was taking longer than they expected. They oversold themselves and their abilities. This was no excuse to treat their writers the way they did.

On the same day, a prominent author put forth an apology for the reported racism in their upcoming book, and wasn’t that a train wreck.

I won’t give my opinion on the book, which I haven’t read and don’t intend to, or on the apology, and there’s a very important reason for this. It’s not an apology for me. I have no place in a discussion about a book’s anti-Blackness, as I am not the author nor the impacted audience. But the weird thing? So many white people responded to that apology, thanking the writer for it and absolving them for a crime not committed against them.

It's been a baffling day in the writing community, that’s all I’m getting at.

Here’s our next installment of our story:

Her eyes were darker than night. Dark freckles framed them, high up on her cheeks, and her curly hair was shorn close to her head. Her short sleeves stretched around thick biceps.

They needed to say something.

They needed to finish getting dressed.

But neither of them said anything for what felt like an age.