Marco
In a former life, I tended bar at a Mexican restaurant. It was a hole-in-the-wall dump of a place, a converted Frisch’s Big Boy with a few colorful blankets and sombreros and piñatas tacked to the walls for “atmosphere.” The food was authentic, though, and we always got good reviews in the newspaper.
I started each shift by cutting dozens of limes into wheels for garnishes, mixing five-gallon tanks of margaritas, and generally prepping the bar for what we called “Fiesta Hour.”
Between 2PM and 7PM, you could buy jumbo margaritas and well drinks for half-price, and you could eat fresh tortilla chips and homemade salsa for free. In theory, the cheap drinks and free snacks were supposed to stimulate customers’ appetites. In theory, they would then order a plate of rellenos or enchiladas or pollo con salsa verde. In practice, however, quite a few patrons regularly came in strictly for the cut-rate tequila buzz and comp munchies.
One of those patrons was a guy named Marco.
Mid-thirties, tall and thin, stringy blond hair, big Adam’s apple, still lived with his parents.
He always ordered multiple margaritas on the rocks (light on the ice; he got more booze that way), multiple baskets of chips, and multiple tubs of hot and mild salsa. He never bought anything off the menu, and he never tipped me a dime.
But those weren't the main reasons I dreaded seeing him.
You see, Marco was a self-proclaimed perfumier. He had a “laboratory” set up in his basement, where he distilled oils and essences, spices and extracts--all sorts of exotic and volatile concoctions designed to titillate the human olfactory nerve. Drop-by-drop, Mad Scientist Marco filled tiny glass vials with these precious potions of his, and then mounted the vials in a briefcase for display. Sometimes he brought the briefcase to the bar with him.
There was only one problem with Marco’s fragrances: they didn’t smell very good. In fact, they stunk.
That’s not just my opinion. Everybody who ever smelled Marco’s products said they stunk. Popping the cork on one of his bottles was like unleashing the hounds of perfume hell. Imagine an elevator full of blue-haired, lipstick-toothed octogenarians, whose senses of smell died sometime during the Carter administration. Add a couple of funeral sprays, some rubbing alcohol, and maybe a dash of Pine Sol. Shake well.
Oh, he occasionally sold one of those vile vials, to a kindly cocktail server or a nearby customer who took pity on him. I even bought a bottle one time, only to pitch it in the dumpster on my way home.
Unfortunately, our patronage only encouraged him. He kept making more of that kerosene cologne, kept trying to hawk it during Fiesta Hour. Eventually, the restaurant owner had a talk with him. Marco didn’t come in very often after that.
Marco’s dream was to be a famous perfume designer. The way I see it, he went about it all wrong.
Shouldn’t you know a little bit about chemistry? Shouldn't you be aware of how various substances might interact with human glandular secretions? Shouldn’t you maybe spend some time in Paris or New York or somewhere studying with masters of the trade? Shouldn’t you analyze popular scents on a molecular level to see just what it is about them that turns people on?
Marco didn’t do any of that. Marco bought some smelly stuff through the mail, pumped it into amateurish-looking containers, tried to sell it from a briefcase at the cantina.
And he wanted to call himself a perfumier.
Sorry, Marco, but you have to earn that title.
Just as, in my opinion, writers have to earn the title of published author.
Anyone who can scratch out words on a page can have those words printed and bound and put up for sale on sites like Amazon. To me, that type of publishing is tantamount to bottling perfume from a basement lab and selling it from a briefcase in a bar.
In other words, it’s very likely that the end product will stink.
I was at a writer’s conference one time, outside smoking a cigarette, when a fellow attendee strolled up and asked for a light.
“What kind of stuff do you write?” he asked.
“Hardboiled. I’m working on a private eye novel.”
“Anything published yet?”
“Not yet. I’m still looking for an agent. How ‘bout you?”
“Yeah, I have a book out.”
“Really? Who’s the publisher?”
He named a certain POD outfit. "Here, let me give you one of my cards...”
He handed me a business card and walked away. He avoided me for the duration of the conference, preferring instead to hang around with other “published authors.” I felt like grabbing him by the collar and shouting you’re not published either, you punk, but of course I didn’t. Anyway, I doubt my harsh words would have penetrated his cloud of arrogance.
There are no shortcuts to becoming a published author. You have to earn the title by landing a contract with a legitimate publisher, and that can take years of hard work.
Some folks would rather throw up a lab in the basement and start hawking product right away (throw up and hawk being the key words there).
That’s their choice, I suppose, but I really don’t see the point.
I started each shift by cutting dozens of limes into wheels for garnishes, mixing five-gallon tanks of margaritas, and generally prepping the bar for what we called “Fiesta Hour.”
Between 2PM and 7PM, you could buy jumbo margaritas and well drinks for half-price, and you could eat fresh tortilla chips and homemade salsa for free. In theory, the cheap drinks and free snacks were supposed to stimulate customers’ appetites. In theory, they would then order a plate of rellenos or enchiladas or pollo con salsa verde. In practice, however, quite a few patrons regularly came in strictly for the cut-rate tequila buzz and comp munchies.
One of those patrons was a guy named Marco.
Mid-thirties, tall and thin, stringy blond hair, big Adam’s apple, still lived with his parents.
He always ordered multiple margaritas on the rocks (light on the ice; he got more booze that way), multiple baskets of chips, and multiple tubs of hot and mild salsa. He never bought anything off the menu, and he never tipped me a dime.
But those weren't the main reasons I dreaded seeing him.
You see, Marco was a self-proclaimed perfumier. He had a “laboratory” set up in his basement, where he distilled oils and essences, spices and extracts--all sorts of exotic and volatile concoctions designed to titillate the human olfactory nerve. Drop-by-drop, Mad Scientist Marco filled tiny glass vials with these precious potions of his, and then mounted the vials in a briefcase for display. Sometimes he brought the briefcase to the bar with him.
There was only one problem with Marco’s fragrances: they didn’t smell very good. In fact, they stunk.
That’s not just my opinion. Everybody who ever smelled Marco’s products said they stunk. Popping the cork on one of his bottles was like unleashing the hounds of perfume hell. Imagine an elevator full of blue-haired, lipstick-toothed octogenarians, whose senses of smell died sometime during the Carter administration. Add a couple of funeral sprays, some rubbing alcohol, and maybe a dash of Pine Sol. Shake well.
Oh, he occasionally sold one of those vile vials, to a kindly cocktail server or a nearby customer who took pity on him. I even bought a bottle one time, only to pitch it in the dumpster on my way home.
Unfortunately, our patronage only encouraged him. He kept making more of that kerosene cologne, kept trying to hawk it during Fiesta Hour. Eventually, the restaurant owner had a talk with him. Marco didn’t come in very often after that.
Marco’s dream was to be a famous perfume designer. The way I see it, he went about it all wrong.
Shouldn’t you know a little bit about chemistry? Shouldn't you be aware of how various substances might interact with human glandular secretions? Shouldn’t you maybe spend some time in Paris or New York or somewhere studying with masters of the trade? Shouldn’t you analyze popular scents on a molecular level to see just what it is about them that turns people on?
Marco didn’t do any of that. Marco bought some smelly stuff through the mail, pumped it into amateurish-looking containers, tried to sell it from a briefcase at the cantina.
And he wanted to call himself a perfumier.
Sorry, Marco, but you have to earn that title.
Just as, in my opinion, writers have to earn the title of published author.
Anyone who can scratch out words on a page can have those words printed and bound and put up for sale on sites like Amazon. To me, that type of publishing is tantamount to bottling perfume from a basement lab and selling it from a briefcase in a bar.
In other words, it’s very likely that the end product will stink.
I was at a writer’s conference one time, outside smoking a cigarette, when a fellow attendee strolled up and asked for a light.
“What kind of stuff do you write?” he asked.
“Hardboiled. I’m working on a private eye novel.”
“Anything published yet?”
“Not yet. I’m still looking for an agent. How ‘bout you?”
“Yeah, I have a book out.”
“Really? Who’s the publisher?”
He named a certain POD outfit. "Here, let me give you one of my cards...”
He handed me a business card and walked away. He avoided me for the duration of the conference, preferring instead to hang around with other “published authors.” I felt like grabbing him by the collar and shouting you’re not published either, you punk, but of course I didn’t. Anyway, I doubt my harsh words would have penetrated his cloud of arrogance.
There are no shortcuts to becoming a published author. You have to earn the title by landing a contract with a legitimate publisher, and that can take years of hard work.
Some folks would rather throw up a lab in the basement and start hawking product right away (throw up and hawk being the key words there).
That’s their choice, I suppose, but I really don’t see the point.
Views: 76
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Eric Christopherson on
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Why aren't you attacking the credentials of the people who certify radiologists, John? Wouldn't that be consistent with your attitude toward agents and editors?
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Permalink Reply by John Dishon on
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No, universities certify both radiologists and MFA graduates. Agents and editors don't award any kind of certification.
Unless I'm missing your point?
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My point is agents and editors do certify authors in the sense that agents certify work to be shown publishers and publishers certify by publishing. If you have respect for the expertise of agents and publishers, then it follows that those authors with certification are as a group more skilled than those without it, i.e., self-published authors. (On an individual basis there may be exceptions, of course.)
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Permalink Reply by Jon Loomis on
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Agents and editors also work their way up through the ranks: they're certified (or not) based on their track records. It's a tough business--those who fail don't stick around very long.
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I guess the difference, as far as I see it, is that a radiologist's credentials are easy to check, as far as if they're good or not. Does he work the x-ray machine well, or whatever else radiologists do. Or let's take a surgeon. You can look at his success rate, you can observe his skills at working, these are quantifiable to agree far surpassing books, since whether a book is good or not as more subjective than whether a surgeon is good at his job or not.
Also muddling the comparison is that agents and editors are not merely looking for the best story, but the most marketable stories. You seem to be saying that agents/editors are a kind of quality control system that separate the wheat from the chaff, but if they do such a good job, then how come so many people complain of all the mediocre or crap books that get published?
I enjoy fewer books than I hate. That's just me, I'm not saying that is representative of the whole. So for me, more chaff seems to get through than wheat, so yeah, I guess my confidence in agents and editors picking good stories is a bit shaky. I don't see that agents or editors are any better at picking good books than I am, or anyone else for that matter. Maybe they're better at picking books that will sell.
But since all this is determined on what criteria makes a good book for me, it is not comparable to a surgeon. You can tell a lot easier whether he's good or not. I'm not sure that "anyone" can even go out and buy an x-ray machine anyway.
To get back to your point, though, self-published authors aren't even subjected to the same screening process that traditionally published authors are, obviously, because they just went ahead and published their work. So it doesn't follow that an author who went through an agent/editor is more skilled then a self-published author. It just means that maybe they are more skilled than those who went through an agent/editor and got rejected. But more accurately, I believe, it means authors who went through an agent/editor are more marketable than those who were rejected.
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Permalink Reply by Jude Hardin on
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...it means authors who went through an agent/editor are more marketable than those who were rejected.
Um, yeah, that's why they call it the publishing BUSINESS.
Good luck on trying to get something published that nobody will buy, LOL.
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You say that as if anyone ever proposed the opposite; and no one did. Way to completely ignore the argument.
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Sales is an excellent measure of the success of an agent or editor IMO. So too, I suppose, would be book awards, and reviews for the books they've backed. And I think sales is a reasonable substitute for quality. Ask yourself to what extent is a marketable book marketable because it is good? In the celebrity bio field, not a lot, perhaps, but in lit fic, well, a lot, probably, with genre fiction falling somewhere in the middle and no book, no matter how marketable in its premise, being in fact marketable unless the writing is up to a certain standard. So agent/editor performance is measurable it seems to me.
And I think you can find in the history of all professions that practice improves performance. These agents/editors spend more time than anyone else assessing books. It's likely they do it better than any other people.
Last point, and this is based on anecdotal evidence I've inadvertently collected over the years, I think you would have to search far and wide to find a self-published author who didn't first try the traditional agent/editor route to publication without success. So I still say the self-published group comes up short by comparison (though not necessarily on an individual basis).
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Yeah, I agree that practice improves performance. I can only base my perception of agents/editors performance in quality control on my limited reading. I haven't read enough to give a representative view on the subject. I don't think I've read even one self-published novel. Maybe they are all crap. I just don't like the stigma of it, that a book is presumed bad just because it didn't go through the popular route. Though I can see the feasibility of needing a way to exclude a lot of work; otherwise the screening process would take forever.
My hope is the internet will provide a more viable means for self-published authors to prove their worth. -
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It's pretty easy to check out an agent's credentials: most publish their client lists online these days. Editors, too: their success rates may not be posted on the internets, but you could certainly get a sense of what they do by looking at the particular imprint for which they edit. Also, your agent can/should be able to give you a thumbs-up or thumbs-down about a particular editor, and shouldn't submit your stuff to an editor that wouldn't get it. Which is not to say that those things always happen, but in an ideal world...
I don't know enough about the world of self-publishing to render any judgments about it, other than the obvious--fair or not, there is a bit of a stigma associated with it, and most writers' first option would be to go the mainstream route. That would certainly be my choice: it's hard enough to sell books these days; I don't have time to do the writing, editing, promoting AND distribution myself.
I don't think there's any guarantee that every book published by a big New York house is going to be better than every self-published book. In fact, I'd be the first to agree that most of what comes out of big pub these days is utter, unforgivable crap--and that's a big reason the industry's in decline. But to get published at a major (or even minor indie) house, you have to pass through several layers of pretty rigorous scrutiny, and get by numerous readers whose job it is to winnow the slush pile. You can get rejected by unpaid interns, agents' assistants, agents, assistant editors, editors, editorial boards, vice presidents of marketing and even corporate CEOs. It means something to make it through that gauntlet, IMO. Not that the book is good, necessarily, but that a lot of people whose job it is to try to find and publish "good" (insert meaning of the word here) books thought yours was better than 99.99999% of the other stuff they read that month. Self publishing just means you have a strong desire to see your name in print and enough money to make it happen. It's a little like renting a limo: look at me! I've got sixty dollars!
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That's it! Well said, Jon.
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The rented limo comparison was apt as well as humorous. If I were an editor I'd ask to see more of your work.
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