"It's good, but we can't market it. If you were already famous in some other way so we could sell based on that, we would buy it."
Could have phrased it better, but I kinda get it.
this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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"It's good, but we're bad at actually selling books so we need you to be famous in another unrelated way to compensate for our incompetence"
FTFY
At least they know their failings and wont waste the authors time.
"they" don't though. The low level employee/intern who read it might but that entire industry is up its own ass smelling it's own farts at the top.
No you didn't. People don't buy the memoirs of random people. The publisher can move heaven and Earth but people still wouldn't change the fact that the audience will never exist
Sure they do, all the time, as long as it's an interesting story.
More than half of the books on this list are by "random" ie, non famous people.
Who said anything about memoirs? The thing about "the memoirs of random people" is not that they were written by non-famous people - it's that they are about non-famous people.
What about the people who were only famous for writing?
Remember Oprah and a million little pieces. I'm pretty sure that guy was a complete unknown before he made that shit up.
"We won't publish you until you've been published"
Think about it
I thought this was an entry level publishing
Yes
You can be other kinds of famous. An athlete, youtuber, etc. Even if youre trying to sell speculative fiction, some traction somewhere helps the process.
But yeah, it's shitty. It's really hard to make any money writing now.
applies to the job market too
So you run it by James Paterson, Inc. (or the estate of Tom Clancy or whoever fits best) get his name above yours and now you're contracted to release new novels at an absolutely breakneck pace,, but you have your foot in the door and can become the more famous writer who can release their own novels.
I would've thought "finding fresh talent" is something that publishers do out of self-interest, but I guess I'm wrong.
this assumes the industry is vaguely competent and capable of critical thinking
I can’t have a job because I don’t have enough experience. I don’t have experience because I don’t have a job.
Was it an autobiography?
Lots and lots of anecdotes online about aspiring authors being denied publishing because they don't have a pre-established following. It's a sad state of affairs
Isn't the publisher's job to advertise the book, get people to know it?
That sounds hard, just have a popular YouTube channel or Insta or something.
Book publishers have become so risk adverse that they really do only established stuff then they have a limit for everything else. It’s hard to even get established stuff translated from other countries.
Given the extremely tiny cost of digital distribution, I think this would be reason enough to never even bother talking to "publishers."
Sure but if you wanted to do it as a career, you’d need them.
The book selling business is killing books. It's so expensive to buy a new book today that I don't even bother looking. Long live the old books stores and public libraries!
This is what ghost writing is for. The publisher just slaps “Peter Andre” on the cover, the readers get to do “Leo-pointing-at-the-television”, everybody wins.
What's especially dumb about this is that Tom is an excellent writer. Villager is wonderful.
He's talking about his friend who is trying to get started, not himself
So he is. It's been a long day...