﻿<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:googleplay="http://www.google.com/schemas/play-podcasts/1.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Sinister Malefactor of Panglossian Expectations]]></title><description><![CDATA[Where Jane gets personal about her career choices and the challenges of being an advice giver in the writing and publishing community.]]></description><link>https://janefriedman.substack.com</link><image><url>https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!iTVE!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F97b83543-d020-4634-bbc7-52d1bda84e95_177x177.png</url><title>Sinister Malefactor of Panglossian Expectations</title><link>https://janefriedman.substack.com</link></image><generator>Substack</generator><lastBuildDate>Fri, 19 Jun 2026 11:29:28 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://janefriedman.substack.com/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><copyright><![CDATA[Jane Friedman]]></copyright><language><![CDATA[en]]></language><webMaster><![CDATA[janefriedman@substack.com]]></webMaster><itunes:owner><itunes:email><![CDATA[janefriedman@substack.com]]></itunes:email><itunes:name><![CDATA[Jane Friedman]]></itunes:name></itunes:owner><itunes:author><![CDATA[Jane Friedman]]></itunes:author><googleplay:owner><![CDATA[janefriedman@substack.com]]></googleplay:owner><googleplay:email><![CDATA[janefriedman@substack.com]]></googleplay:email><googleplay:author><![CDATA[Jane Friedman]]></googleplay:author><itunes:block><![CDATA[Yes]]></itunes:block><item><title><![CDATA[Stop Obsessing About Your Genre-Subgenre-Subsubgenre]]></title><description><![CDATA[I'm sorry, I must now contradict 20+ years of my own guidance.]]></description><link>https://janefriedman.substack.com/p/stop-obsessing-about-your-genre-subgenre</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://janefriedman.substack.com/p/stop-obsessing-about-your-genre-subgenre</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jane Friedman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 18:26:18 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5vN-!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82b70396-de99-423a-9cb1-1877d8a7cd13_2754x1720.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5vN-!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82b70396-de99-423a-9cb1-1877d8a7cd13_2754x1720.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5vN-!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82b70396-de99-423a-9cb1-1877d8a7cd13_2754x1720.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5vN-!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82b70396-de99-423a-9cb1-1877d8a7cd13_2754x1720.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5vN-!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82b70396-de99-423a-9cb1-1877d8a7cd13_2754x1720.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5vN-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82b70396-de99-423a-9cb1-1877d8a7cd13_2754x1720.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5vN-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82b70396-de99-423a-9cb1-1877d8a7cd13_2754x1720.png" width="1456" height="909" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/82b70396-de99-423a-9cb1-1877d8a7cd13_2754x1720.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:909,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:5337966,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://janefriedman.substack.com/i/189884897?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82b70396-de99-423a-9cb1-1877d8a7cd13_2754x1720.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5vN-!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82b70396-de99-423a-9cb1-1877d8a7cd13_2754x1720.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5vN-!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82b70396-de99-423a-9cb1-1877d8a7cd13_2754x1720.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5vN-!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82b70396-de99-423a-9cb1-1877d8a7cd13_2754x1720.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5vN-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82b70396-de99-423a-9cb1-1877d8a7cd13_2754x1720.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I apologize to everyone who&#8217;s ever bought my book or taken a class with me, but getting hung up on identifying your genre, subgenre and/or category<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-1" href="#footnote-1" target="_self">1</a> is a soul-sucking distraction. </p><p>Obviously I&#8217;ve contributed to this problem immensely and so have countless agents and editors by telling writers <em>they better understand their genre!</em> (<em>go read every bestseller in your genre!</em>), by asking them to pitch only in specific genres, and by delivering exhortations to find the perfect comps in their genre, etc.</p><p>Everything starts and ends with your genre. Right?</p><p>Yes, it does matter. For example, I can&#8217;t very well <a href="https://janefriedman.com/the-bottom-line-janes-publishing-industry-newsletter/">report on publishing industry trends</a> without talking about specific genres and categories. Publishers can&#8217;t announce new imprints without saying what genres or categories those imprints focus on. And you can&#8217;t begin to research comps until you grasp what shelf you&#8217;re likely on. Readers may have trouble finding your book if it&#8217;s not categorized properly, whether physically in a store or in its metadata.</p><p>Nevertheless&#8230;</p><h3>New writers in particular worry about genre too much</h3><p>Industry professionals disagree all the time about genres and what constitutes a genre or subgenre or category. Hell, they even use the term &#8220;genre&#8221; and &#8220;category&#8221; in ways that aren&#8217;t all that consistent with one another<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-2" href="#footnote-2" target="_self">2</a>. Genre boundaries are fuzzy. New genres and subgenres emerge over time (hello, romantasy!).</p><p>And what do you often hear from agents and editors alike? <em>We want genre-bending stories!</em> <em>We want things that defy categorization! Upend our expectations!</em></p><p>Because that&#8217;s what great writers do. They frankly do not give a damn about these labels because they are trying to do great work that transcends labels.</p><h3><strong>Genres and categories are inventions</strong></h3><p>There is an organization called the Book Industry Study Group that is tasked with managing BISAC codes that help the industry categorize books. There is a committee that meets to review and update BISAC codes every year. I would never in my life want to sit on that committee and neither do you. It&#8217;s their thankless job to update the 6,000 codes in 54 categories and decide if and when it&#8217;s time to add, delete, or revise these categories. (E.g., should a BISAC code exist for women&#8217;s fiction? Discussing that with dozens of other publishing professionals sounds like the ninth circle of hell.)</p><p>Guess what? Amazon uses their own category system and layers keywords on top of it. Libraries have their own system, too (CIP data). Bookstores, retailers, and anyone who deals with books can ignore what the publisher says and decide what category or shelf best fits a book.</p><h3>Writers can be their own worst enemy</h3><p>I see writers obsess over categorization before they&#8217;ve even written a single word of their book. The problem can be especially bad among memoirists who want to know if their XYZ-type memoir will sell in today&#8217;s market. But that label will have little or nothing to do with its appeal. Instead, it&#8217;ll depend entirely on whether the story has been in the media, or if the author has a platform, or if the manuscript carries that magical combination of story and voice that makes editors and agents fall over themselves to acquire/represent it.</p><p>Sometimes writing coaches, editors, and instructors, in their patient and endless efforts to get writers to actually decide what their book is <em>about</em>&#8212;or in an effort to instill discipline and focus&#8212;will push those writers to identify their genre and subgenre. They might even offer a list to choose from.</p><p>As soon as you do that, one of two things will happen. Writers will ask:</p><ul><li><p>&#8220;You didn&#8217;t list X. What about X?&#8221;</p></li><li><p>&#8220;But what if my work combines two/three/four/more of these?&#8221;</p></li></ul><p>If you answer even <em>one</em> of those questions it will sprout 10 more just like it.</p><p>What happens next is even more insidious and self-defeating for everyone involved, even though the poor writer thinks otherwise.</p><ul><li><p>&#8220;But how does this advice apply to my subgenre!&#8221;</p></li><li><p>&#8220;Tell me more about my subsubgenre that no one else writes in!&#8221;</p></li><li><p>&#8220;But does this guidance <em>really</em> apply to <em>my subgenre</em>?</p></li><li><p>&#8220;My work is too unique to learn from general advice!&#8221;</p></li></ul><p>At this point, if you&#8217;re an educator, you are truly sunk and also you kind of dug your own grave. You told writers genres and subgenres mattered and they believed you. They will never stop looking for the rules to follow.</p><h3>How do you know if you&#8217;re overly obsessed with genres or categories?</h3><ul><li><p>You want someone to provide you with a &#8220;master list&#8221; of genres, subgenres, or categories.</p></li><li><p>You look for &#8220;official&#8221; definitions of every genre or subgenre.</p></li><li><p>You try to figure out if a particular genre or subgenre is trending or selling well so that you can adjust your pitch according. (Grief memoirs don&#8217;t sell? Then this book is <em>definitely not a grief memoir, no siree!</em>)</p></li><li><p>You blame your lack of success on your genre or genre-related identity.</p></li><li><p>You look for marketing and promotion strategies that work specifically for your genre because it&#8217;s just that special.</p></li></ul><p>Of course I&#8217;m aware that some genres or subgenres can be in decline or get ignored or abandoned by the big houses.<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-3" href="#footnote-3" target="_self">3</a> Westerns is a classic example. Or maybe not&#8212;there are signs of its return in the neo-Western! Which is exactly my point. You&#8217;ll find books <em>all the time</em> that break the rules or are simply categorized or positioned differently so the market sees them as relevant.<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-4" href="#footnote-4" target="_self">4</a></p><h3>What&#8217;s the antidote to this problem?</h3><p>Think back to the first time you were told your sun sign. &#8220;You&#8217;re a Libra, dear.&#8221; Did everything make sense to you at that point when you heard what Libras are like? Or did you think it&#8217;s all nonsense?</p><p>Either way I&#8217;m willing to bet that you more or less went about your life as usual. (Please, astrologists, don&#8217;t write me angry emails.) Maybe on occasion you thought, &#8220;Ah, that&#8217;s my Libra side.&#8221; It&#8217;s one reference point out of many. But you didn&#8217;t start saying, in response to whomever told you that you&#8217;re a Libra, TELL ME ALL ABOUT THEM SO I KNOW HOW TO ACT FROM NOW ON.</p><p>Don&#8217;t let the genre label dictate who you are and what or how you write (or market and promote). Sure, knowing that label helps you understand the market or readership, to know how others might see you and respond to your work, what expectations they might form in advance&#8212;or what expectations you <em>want</em> them to form. (I&#8217;m a Libra! Don&#8217;t force me to make a decision!) </p><p>But still, you must proceed as if you retain creative control. Because you do have control, and life has choices for you to make whether you&#8217;re a Libra or not, and you&#8217;re the one who makes meaning out of it all.</p><p><strong>It&#8217;s all invented.</strong> <strong>Books and categories are invented.</strong> <strong>What you decide to write is invented.</strong> And at some point, it will carry a label. When it&#8217;s necessary to use the label (because you need a shortcut and a signal for telling people where your work exists on a spectrum, just as we have latitude and longitude to help pinpoint things, but they are not actual lines burned into the Earth&#8217;s soil!), then use the label&#8212;precisely because it&#8217;s useful, especially when it&#8217;s time to market and promote. But you don&#8217;t seek permission from your label (or from your latitude and longitude on Earth). It&#8217;s a tool that serves <em>you</em> but unfortunately writers lacking confidence have a propensity to treat it as a dictator, crystal ball, and rulebook, all in one.</p><h3>I am not saying the publishing industry is awful</h3><p>About right now someone is formulating a comment to talk about the industry awful-awfuls, how it&#8217;s all money focused and it likes to put people in boxes, and thank you Jane for pointing out these hideous problems in the industry.</p><p>This post isn&#8217;t about the publishing industry. It&#8217;s about the difficulty in helping writers navigate a creative industry. And my attempts to put a structure on it can inevitably cause harm, especially to writers who take it all quite seriously or people who want to do things very correctly and/or those who focus on these tiny predictors<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-5" href="#footnote-5" target="_self">5</a> because the actual writing thing is hard and these obsessions can give you two things at once: (1) avoidance of the work and (2) something or someone else to blame when it all goes wrong. <em>That editor/agent/publisher is biased against my category! The industry is so unfair to my genre of work!</em> Etc.</p><p>It might be. But this post is about writers and labels and my struggles with both.</p><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-1" href="#footnote-anchor-1" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">1</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>There&#8217;s even a problem here, in having to use three terms and not one.</p></div></div><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-2" href="#footnote-anchor-2" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">2</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>Very generally speaking, category is the biggest, most all-encompassing term. Your category might be fiction, nonfiction, or children&#8217;s, for example. Your genre might be fantasy (which could fall under the category of children&#8217;s or under the category of fiction). Your subgenre might be epic fantasy, which falls under the genre of fantasy. Typically when I teach writers about pitching, I&#8217;m most adamant about knowing your <em>category</em>. You should know if you&#8217;re writing fiction <em>or</em> nonfiction. You should know if you&#8217;re writing for adults <em>or</em> children. But obviously some categories blur the lines: YA is read by both adult and children. When agents and editors discuss what they&#8217;re looking for, they may use the term &#8220;category&#8221; and &#8220;genre&#8221; interchangeably.</p></div></div><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-3" href="#footnote-anchor-3" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">3</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>A good example is historical romance. Harlequin recently announced it would no longer continue publishing its historicals line. Meanwhile, Julia Quinn of Bridgerton fame has raised nearly half a million dollars for a subscription box for historical fiction. There is an audience for <em>everything</em> and the big houses are not the final word on what sells, only what works for them.</p></div></div><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-4" href="#footnote-anchor-4" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">4</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>When my husband read my post, he pointed out that the genre of &#8220;yacht rock&#8221; did not exist until the term was coined in 2005 by an online comedy video series. When Donald Fagen of Steely Dan was told recently that his music is &#8220;yacht rock,&#8221; he <a href="https://people.com/steely-dan-donald-fagen-cursed-out-hung-up-on-yacht-rock-doc-director-8739421">responded</a> with an expletive.</p></div></div><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-5" href="#footnote-anchor-5" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">5</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>I&#8217;ve stolen the term <em>tiny predictors</em> from Adam Mastrioanni, who has written an article every writer should read about <a href="https://www.experimental-history.com/p/so-you-wanna-de-bog-yourself">&#8220;debogging&#8221; yourself</a>. </p><p></p></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[There Is No Such Thing as a Good Editor, Good Agent, Good Publisher, Good Publicist, Good Marketer…]]></title><description><![CDATA[I guarantee someone will respond or comment asking for a recommendation.]]></description><link>https://janefriedman.substack.com/p/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-good</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://janefriedman.substack.com/p/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-good</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jane Friedman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 27 Oct 2024 15:34:31 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SRRS!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8683ecaf-9ea2-4d67-b225-e4a089bd4939_4928x3264.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SRRS!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8683ecaf-9ea2-4d67-b225-e4a089bd4939_4928x3264.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SRRS!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8683ecaf-9ea2-4d67-b225-e4a089bd4939_4928x3264.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SRRS!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8683ecaf-9ea2-4d67-b225-e4a089bd4939_4928x3264.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SRRS!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8683ecaf-9ea2-4d67-b225-e4a089bd4939_4928x3264.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SRRS!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8683ecaf-9ea2-4d67-b225-e4a089bd4939_4928x3264.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SRRS!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8683ecaf-9ea2-4d67-b225-e4a089bd4939_4928x3264.jpeg" width="1456" height="964" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/8683ecaf-9ea2-4d67-b225-e4a089bd4939_4928x3264.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:964,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:1190466,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SRRS!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8683ecaf-9ea2-4d67-b225-e4a089bd4939_4928x3264.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SRRS!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8683ecaf-9ea2-4d67-b225-e4a089bd4939_4928x3264.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SRRS!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8683ecaf-9ea2-4d67-b225-e4a089bd4939_4928x3264.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SRRS!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8683ecaf-9ea2-4d67-b225-e4a089bd4939_4928x3264.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>When I moved back to Cincinnati after 10 years away, I asked my best friend if she could recommend a good primary care provider, as my erstwhile doctor had retired. She gave me the name of hers.</p><p>After a year of seeing this physician, I honestly have no idea who could or would consider them worthy of recommendation. Yet my friend is someone who needs quality, reliable care&#8212;she&#8217;s not blessed with good health. Furthermore, she&#8217;s also seen <em>a lot of doctors</em> in her lifetime. I implicitly trust her judgment.</p><p>So why the disconnect?</p><p>After continual experience with disappointing recommendations, I&#8217;ve concluded some things are highly subjective <em>and</em> highly variable from person to person. And I&#8217;m sorry to say (because it makes my professional life harder) that writing, editing, and publishing is one of those things. Recommendations, even from a trusted source, have to be judged for yourself to determine suitability.</p><p>Daily I&#8217;m asked questions such as:</p><ul><li><p>Can you recommend a good editor who&#8217;s just right for me and this project?</p></li><li><p>Can you recommend a good marketer/publicist for my very particular book, preferably who lives in my city?</p></li><li><p>Can you recommend a good agent who will love exactly what I&#8217;m writing?</p></li><li><p>A good publisher who will market and promote?</p></li><li><p>A good hybrid publisher that fits my budget?</p></li><li><p>A good writing conference in my region?</p></li></ul><p>When writers ask for recommendations of a &#8220;good [fill in the blank],&#8221; usually one or more of the following is true.</p><ul><li><p>They fear wasting their money.</p></li><li><p>They&#8217;ve heard horror stories from other writers and worry the same fate will befall them.</p></li><li><p>They fear making an imperfect choice.</p></li><li><p>They would like someone else to make the choice, to relieve them of the burden.</p></li><li><p>They may not know what &#8220;good&#8221; looks like and don&#8217;t know what criteria to use. Worse still, they may not know their own goals or what a &#8220;good&#8221; outcome would  look like. I find this is often the case when people want to hire a marketer, publicist, or social media consultant. But I digress.</p></li></ul><p>I do maintain a <a href="http://janefriedman.com/resources">public resource list</a>, but I&#8217;ve learned to abide by a few principles.</p><ol><li><p>I don&#8217;t recommend specific agents or publishers. It&#8217;s hard enough to recommend &#8220;good&#8221; service providers, harder still to recommend &#8220;good&#8221; gatekeepers. Social media is awash in advice on literary agents and how to avoid a &#8220;bad&#8221; agent, as well as &#8220;bad&#8221; publishers, especially independent and small publishers. But there is not a legit agent or publisher on the planet who doesn&#8217;t have both authors who are unhappy with them and authors who love them.</p></li><li><p>I try to offer several options for freelancers or service providers such as editors, coaches, marketing firms, publicists, etc.</p></li><li><p>I only add people to the list who, to the best of my knowledge, err on the side of turning people away if they&#8217;re not a good fit. They don&#8217;t take advantage of writers who should not invest. They typically need considerable experience dealing with writers specifically. </p></li></ol><p>I know when I&#8217;ve added the &#8220;wrong&#8221; person when I quickly receive complaints from writers about being brushed off, not receiving timely responses, or not knowing next steps. Those are clear indicators the person may not be accustomed to dealing with writers as clients. When some folks leave traditional publishing to work as a freelancer, they quickly discover their usual habits of not immediately acknowledging emails, or letting writers sit in silence for months while they work, or being late on  deadlines, will lead to poor relationships. It&#8217;s the residual behavior of gatekeeper mindset as one transitions to a service mindset.</p><p>While I encourage every writer to properly research agents, publishers, service providers, and other business partners&#8212;and ask lots of questions before signing or investing&#8212;I can&#8217;t say it loud enough: </p><p><em>You can do everything perfectly and still end up in a bad situation.</em></p><p>Even with the benefit of industry knowledge, I have hired professional designers and ended up not using the final product because I was so disappointed. I have hired a top-notch (expensive) SEO specialist, recommended by someone I trust, whose work did nothing to fix the problem I went to them with. Etc. We&#8217;ve all had these experiences. It doesn&#8217;t mean the people we hired were taking advantage of us or unqualified. Sometimes things don&#8217;t work out and it&#8217;s no one&#8217;s fault. Sometimes it&#8217;s your own fault for not wanting to do the legwork and hiring the first person you find, especially when you want someone to &#8220;fix&#8221; your situation or guarantee a specific outcome, like securing an agent, publishing contract, or bestsellerdom. (Tip: No one can guarantee such things.) And, frustratingly, a lot of the &#8220;good&#8221; people are not available to be hired on your timeline. It&#8217;s easy to give in if you&#8217;re exhausted, rushed, confused, or out of options.</p><p>Recently, I heard from a writer who attended one of my classes on how to get published. Afterward, she signed with a hybrid publisher but didn&#8217;t have a good experience&#8212;and now she was writing me because she was convinced I had recommended this company or indicated they were one of the &#8220;good&#8221; hybrids.</p><p>I was certain I had not recommended the company in question, yet this writer was insistent even though she had no evidence to support her claim. There was something about her insistence that pushed me to investigate whether there could be a kernel of truth to it. I started running searches for my name in connection with the hybrid publisher, and there it was: an out-of-context quote from me, prominently placed on their website to look like an endorsement. And I was willing to bet this quote was used in other ways I could not find.</p><p>Yes, it was infuriating. Yes, I contacted the company and told them to remove the quote. (A hired marketing company was blamed.) Yes, I set up Google alerts to help me better track uses of my name online. </p><p>While I could discuss at length the misleading marketing practices of hybrid publishers, the bigger issue of online misinformation across all industries, as well as the potential role of AI in all this, what really terrifies me is that my name alone could have that much influence on someone&#8217;s decision.</p><p>On some level I do want my advice to be held in incredibly high regard, even seen as indubitable. But I remain fallible, I am wrong about some things, I change my mind, companies themselves change in ways I don&#8217;t see, and I can&#8217;t play matchmaker for every single writer. The people who chase after <em>the</em> <em>perfect</em> <em>recommendation</em> are most likely to be taken advantage of or make a misguided investment. </p><p>On rare occasion, I&#8217;ve had service providers on my public resource list reach out and ask me to remove them. My esteem for such people knows no limits. It&#8217;s not that they&#8217;ve ceased to be in business, or they are overwhelmed, or they don&#8217;t want to be affiliated with me. It&#8217;s rather that the clients they serve come from other, often more  qualified sources. They&#8217;re saving everyone&#8217;s time and know that being on a resource list, especially mine, carries a responsibility to me and the greater community that is no longer in their best interests to fulfill. </p><p>A good editor, a good agent, a good publisher, a good marketer, a good publicist, a good anyone: They have to take care of themselves first before they can offer value to someone else. Don&#8217;t be angry at someone for not agreeing to work or partner with you. That can be the greatest service of all.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA["I Want to Grow Up to Be an Advice Giver" — Said No Child Ever]]></title><description><![CDATA[Advice giving is a classic shadow career because it can earn you a living.]]></description><link>https://janefriedman.substack.com/p/i-want-to-grow-up-to-be-an-advice</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://janefriedman.substack.com/p/i-want-to-grow-up-to-be-an-advice</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jane Friedman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 19 Dec 2023 19:17:05 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NLM0!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd5039dc2-3ef2-4ebd-abc7-f029794fb36e_2000x1335.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NLM0!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd5039dc2-3ef2-4ebd-abc7-f029794fb36e_2000x1335.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NLM0!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd5039dc2-3ef2-4ebd-abc7-f029794fb36e_2000x1335.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NLM0!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd5039dc2-3ef2-4ebd-abc7-f029794fb36e_2000x1335.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NLM0!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd5039dc2-3ef2-4ebd-abc7-f029794fb36e_2000x1335.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NLM0!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd5039dc2-3ef2-4ebd-abc7-f029794fb36e_2000x1335.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NLM0!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd5039dc2-3ef2-4ebd-abc7-f029794fb36e_2000x1335.jpeg" width="1456" height="972" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d5039dc2-3ef2-4ebd-abc7-f029794fb36e_2000x1335.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:972,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:1660475,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Close up portrait of stylish modern little girl standing against white background with wave hairstyle raising fists up isolated on shine grey background big eyes and wide open mouth&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="Close up portrait of stylish modern little girl standing against white background with wave hairstyle raising fists up isolated on shine grey background big eyes and wide open mouth" title="Close up portrait of stylish modern little girl standing against white background with wave hairstyle raising fists up isolated on shine grey background big eyes and wide open mouth" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NLM0!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd5039dc2-3ef2-4ebd-abc7-f029794fb36e_2000x1335.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NLM0!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd5039dc2-3ef2-4ebd-abc7-f029794fb36e_2000x1335.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NLM0!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd5039dc2-3ef2-4ebd-abc7-f029794fb36e_2000x1335.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NLM0!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd5039dc2-3ef2-4ebd-abc7-f029794fb36e_2000x1335.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I&#8217;ve been recommending Steven Pressfield&#8217;s <em>The War of Art</em> ever since it was published. His follow-up, <em>Turning Pro, </em>is less well known but just as valuable, where he has a passage about shadow careers that&#8217;s haunted me ever since I read it.</p><blockquote><p>Sometimes, when we&#8217;re terrified of embracing our true calling, we&#8217;ll pursue a shadow calling instead. The shadow career is a metaphor for our real career. Its shape is similar, its contours feel tantalizingly the same. But a shadow career entails no real risk. If we fail at a shadow career, the consequences are meaningless to us.</p><p>Are you pursuing a shadow career?</p><p>Are you getting your Ph.D. in Elizabethan Studies because you&#8217;re afraid to write the tragedies and comedies you know you have inside you? Are you living the drugs-and-booze half of the musician&#8217;s life, without actually writing the music? Are you working in a support capacity for an innovator because you&#8217;re afraid to risk being an innovator yourself?</p><p>If you&#8217;re dissatisfied with your current life, ask yourself what your current life is a metaphor for.</p><p>That metaphor will point you toward your true calling.</p></blockquote><p>First, I&#8217;ll be honest: If I have a true calling, I have no idea what it is. There&#8217;s nothing I secretly long to pursue. Sure, I&#8217;d like to write a few things I don&#8217;t have time for right now, but if I die tomorrow, I have no regrets about my work.</p><p>Yet I never aspired to my current role as advice giver, especially in an industry where advice giving is populated more by profit seekers than by people who have writers&#8217; best interests at heart. And that&#8217;s partly because writers are the easiest of targets. Tell them you&#8217;ll share the secrets of publishing success for the low, low price of $16,000<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-1" href="#footnote-1" target="_self">1</a>. Or tell them their work is wonderful, they&#8217;re a sorry victim of the traditional publishing industry, and you&#8217;re the one person who will ensure they get the attention they so richly deserve. Just sign this publishing services contract and fork over thousands of dollars in three installments please.</p><p>Scams proliferate when millions of people with little stomach for the hard work all have identical dreams of success in an industry as opaque as publishing. Every writer needs to thank the gods that <a href="https://writerbeware.blog/">Writer Beware</a> exists and Victoria Strauss continues to have the good health and good will to continue it. And certainly one reason that <em>does</em> motivate me to continue in my current work is helping people avoid the terrible deals, the terrible treatment, and the terrible financial pitfalls that likely await them. Please come sit by me so I can reveal you&#8217;re like 99% of writers out there, someone who probably isn&#8217;t very special and isn&#8217;t going to make a dime off your writing. And that the only lucrative part of this whole industry is where you pay me to tell you how to be part of the 1%. </p><p>Any author or publisher who stumbles into producing a book about writing and publishing quickly realizes that such work is more profitable than just about anything else they might ever release into the world, and if you find that to be a sad commentary on book publishing today, well, yes. You understand exactly how I feel about the profession I&#8217;ve ended up in. It&#8217;s made me reluctant to charge high prices for anything; I want to keep things as accessible as possible while repeatedly and vociferously <em>lowering people&#8217;s expectations</em>. </p><p>Early on in my career, I jokingly referred to myself as &#8220;the dream crusher,&#8221; and at one time my tagline was something like &#8220;tough love with Midwestern friendliness.&#8221; It&#8217;s not that I <em>want</em> you to be demoralized about writing and publishing, but I absolutely refuse to sell you a bill of goods. The only reason to keep writing is because you take joy in the writing itself, that you pursue the game for its own sake.</p><p>Ever since I went full-time freelance in 2014, I&#8217;ve tried to move further away from the advice giving and more into what I desperately want to classify as reporting and education. Still, there&#8217;s no denying that my revenue comes largely from people who will end up paying more to support their writing career than they will earn from it. The only way I can defend this model is by being as honest and transparent as possible about the industry, and ultimately helping writers either save their time or save them from an even more expensive mistake than paying $25 for a class or $79 for a newsletter subscription.</p><p>None of this is unique to the writing and publishing industry. &#8220;Those who can, do; those who can&#8217;t, teach&#8221;&#8212;I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ve heard that one. Or maybe you&#8217;ve observed office workers roll their eyes when the consultants come in to &#8220;innovate&#8221; or re-envision the business, then exit with a nice payday without experiencing the consequences of their recommendations. Consulting is just another form of advice giving at a higher price point for corporate clients.</p><p>Writers helping other writers is not morally suspect&#8212;quite the contrary. Selling books rarely pays the bills, and working writers are less likely to defraud a fellow writer (let&#8217;s hope), plus they often have in-the-trenches wisdom to share. And many share freely without asking for anything in return. As for me, I began working in the publishing industry as an editor, not a writer, and most damningly in the field of writing and publishing advice&#8212;Writer&#8217;s Digest. The brand&#8217;s activities sometimes generated cynicism and criticism from the community, and rightly so. I&#8217;ll never forget a company executive pushing his idea of a writing contest for which we&#8217;d charge a $1,000 entry fee for a chance at a book deal. (All we needed were 100 entries for an extra $100,000 in revenue in the fourth quarter!) When I suggested this contest was predatory, the executive&#8217;s response was that he knew <em>lots</em> of people who would happily pay that entry fee given the potential reward. </p><p>Before you think too well of me, monetizing hope was and always will be part of this business. I didn&#8217;t object to the many other contests we ran that were just as lucrative, generating nearly $1 million in revenue every year, with a profit margin beyond 80 percent. Entering these contests rarely did writers any good, even when they placed well. The grand-prize winner I took to New York in 2002 to visit agents? It was incredible fun, but that author didn&#8217;t get a book deal and I haven&#8217;t seen any evidence of her activity in nearly 20 years.</p><p>I&#8217;ll end on this astute observation from the former spokesperson and Director of Publicity and Media Relations for three decades at Knopf (Penguin Random House), <span class="mention-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Paul Bogaards&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:7598279,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;user&quot;,&quot;url&quot;:null,&quot;photo_url&quot;:&quot;https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/92457564-2408-4fcb-becc-1813ef15f898_900x900.jpeg&quot;,&quot;uuid&quot;:&quot;e804a80a-5bf9-4d69-9f42-61a7478f01e4&quot;}" data-component-name="MentionToDOM"></span>.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P9em!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2237b48f-8486-4b83-a003-627a9ccc50ec_1208x584.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P9em!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2237b48f-8486-4b83-a003-627a9ccc50ec_1208x584.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P9em!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2237b48f-8486-4b83-a003-627a9ccc50ec_1208x584.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P9em!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2237b48f-8486-4b83-a003-627a9ccc50ec_1208x584.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P9em!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2237b48f-8486-4b83-a003-627a9ccc50ec_1208x584.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P9em!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2237b48f-8486-4b83-a003-627a9ccc50ec_1208x584.png" width="1208" height="584" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2237b48f-8486-4b83-a003-627a9ccc50ec_1208x584.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:584,&quot;width&quot;:1208,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:124294,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P9em!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2237b48f-8486-4b83-a003-627a9ccc50ec_1208x584.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P9em!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2237b48f-8486-4b83-a003-627a9ccc50ec_1208x584.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P9em!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2237b48f-8486-4b83-a003-627a9ccc50ec_1208x584.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P9em!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2237b48f-8486-4b83-a003-627a9ccc50ec_1208x584.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I have the answer, Paul. The advice givers are making money.</p><div><hr></div><p>Do you want to subscribe to this infrequent newsletter? Be careful where you click because you may receive more of this in the future.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://janefriedman.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://janefriedman.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p></p><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-1" href="#footnote-anchor-1" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">1</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>Yes, I&#8217;m referring to a real and well-known offering out there. Have fun searching for it!</p><p></p></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Being a Very Online Advice-Giver Has Made My Writing Worse]]></title><description><![CDATA[I (don't) look forward to your feedback.]]></description><link>https://janefriedman.substack.com/p/being-an-advice-giver-makes-my-writing-worse</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://janefriedman.substack.com/p/being-an-advice-giver-makes-my-writing-worse</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jane Friedman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 24 Sep 2023 14:25:23 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_6R7!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0609c1e2-08df-499e-bb73-d22df4b96536_2220x1200.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_6R7!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0609c1e2-08df-499e-bb73-d22df4b96536_2220x1200.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_6R7!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0609c1e2-08df-499e-bb73-d22df4b96536_2220x1200.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_6R7!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0609c1e2-08df-499e-bb73-d22df4b96536_2220x1200.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_6R7!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0609c1e2-08df-499e-bb73-d22df4b96536_2220x1200.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_6R7!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0609c1e2-08df-499e-bb73-d22df4b96536_2220x1200.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_6R7!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0609c1e2-08df-499e-bb73-d22df4b96536_2220x1200.jpeg" width="1456" height="787" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/0609c1e2-08df-499e-bb73-d22df4b96536_2220x1200.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:787,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:186430,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A smooth, unremarkable rock, cleaned of any distinction&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="A smooth, unremarkable rock, cleaned of any distinction" title="A smooth, unremarkable rock, cleaned of any distinction" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_6R7!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0609c1e2-08df-499e-bb73-d22df4b96536_2220x1200.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_6R7!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0609c1e2-08df-499e-bb73-d22df4b96536_2220x1200.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_6R7!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0609c1e2-08df-499e-bb73-d22df4b96536_2220x1200.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_6R7!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0609c1e2-08df-499e-bb73-d22df4b96536_2220x1200.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I&#8217;ll never forget this postscript in a <a href="https://thewhippet.org/150-heartsmitten-desire-of-wandering/#think-of-advice-the-way-you-think-of-medicine">fabulous issue of The Whippet</a> by McKinley Valentine (everyone should subscribe):</p><blockquote><p>Writing online&#8212;where the barrier to people responding to you is very low&#8212;tends to make people slightly worse writers because you always have the voice of the most pedantic reader in your head, so you go with the unassailable generic over the specific, or you dilute the impact of a strong sentence by adding a bunch of disclaimers to head off commenters. Presumably the bigger your audience, the stronger the effect.</p></blockquote><p>This is the disease I suffer from. I&#8217;ve spent 15 continuous years being a very online person whose writing appears primarily on websites and in newsletters. </p><p>I <em>know</em> that I&#8217;m being a bad writer in the way Valentine describes. But as I write I can&#8217;t help but anticipate the comments and emails I will deal with no matter how innocuous the topic.</p><p>Whatever voice I possessed in my college days, it has been scrubbed down to basic-basic. In my head, I picture a featureless rock. Reader reviews describe my work as clear, direct and pragmatic (kind), or dry (true). As I settle into mid-life, I imagine how my writing could or would have grown if I had never given any consideration to the people waiting to tell me how I didn&#8217;t personally take them into account.</p><p>Before I read Valentine, I was long aware of Paul Ford&#8217;s incisive theory, <a href="https://www.ftrain.com/wwic">The Web Is a Customer Service Medium</a>. In it, he gives a name to the dynamic that rules the online world, &#8220;Why Wasn&#8217;t I Consulted?&#8221; He writes, &#8220;Humans have a fundamental need to be consulted, engaged, to exercise their knowledge (and thus power), and no other medium that came before [the web] has been able to tap into that as effectively.&#8221;</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!65p3!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82eda078-a674-4b49-abf9-496029b69a61_330x186.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!65p3!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82eda078-a674-4b49-abf9-496029b69a61_330x186.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!65p3!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82eda078-a674-4b49-abf9-496029b69a61_330x186.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!65p3!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82eda078-a674-4b49-abf9-496029b69a61_330x186.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!65p3!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82eda078-a674-4b49-abf9-496029b69a61_330x186.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!65p3!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82eda078-a674-4b49-abf9-496029b69a61_330x186.png" width="330" height="186" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/82eda078-a674-4b49-abf9-496029b69a61_330x186.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:186,&quot;width&quot;:330,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:153450,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!65p3!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82eda078-a674-4b49-abf9-496029b69a61_330x186.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!65p3!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82eda078-a674-4b49-abf9-496029b69a61_330x186.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!65p3!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82eda078-a674-4b49-abf9-496029b69a61_330x186.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!65p3!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82eda078-a674-4b49-abf9-496029b69a61_330x186.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture><div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">People online want to be consulted about things. If you don&#8217;t, prepare to deal with their consternation.</figcaption></figure></div><p>Reading Ford helps you take a charitable, even philosophical, view of this very human phenomenon. Yet when you face it personally every day in your inbox, charity curdles.  I&#8217;ll <em>always</em> hear from people explaining how they are the exception to the rule or why my guidance doesn&#8217;t work. They&#8217;re not trying to be mean, snarky or prove me wrong. Some are more gracious than I would be in similar circumstances, and I certainly want to hear from the exceptions. I want to know about the diverse experiences out there even if I don&#8217;t always want to hear about how much I&#8217;m wrong.</p><p>Seven or eight years into my tenure at Writer&#8217;s Digest (not during the early years, in other words), I sat in on a query letter class taught by a novelist. By that point, I had read and seen just about everything on query letters and I taught my own classes on the subject. This novelist delivered what I considered the worst guidance I&#8217;d ever heard: Don&#8217;t research who you&#8217;re submitting to. Get super personal in the query. If you don&#8217;t hear back, keep nagging. Go ahead and pick up the phone if necessary. And so on. </p><p>I did not stand up and say, &#8220;Sir, you are wrong.&#8221; This novelist was charismatic (plus a great writer, which helps), and someone I could easily imagine winning over the hearts and minds of agents and editors. But how many people in the audience were like this fellow, a force of nature? Still, he made me re-evaluate how I teach queries. Just about anything is permissible if you&#8217;re charming enough, if people enjoy the ineffable you. As the old saying goes from Edison, &#8220;There are no rules here, we&#8217;re trying to accomplish something.&#8221;<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-1" href="#footnote-1" target="_self">1</a> </p><p>I do in fact believe that, so early on I began to emphasize &#8220;best practices.&#8221; And I&#8217;ve gained buckets of humility. Advice is never universal. Advice can be harmful when it&#8217;s received by the wrong person or at the wrong time&#8212;or interpreted or remembered incorrectly. (The latter happens a shocking amount.) Expressing brash certitude and forcefulness, a rhetorical flourish I leaned into in my college writing days, I had to abandon. I&#8217;m never going to tell people they <strong>must</strong> be on such-and-such platform or they <strong>must</strong> do anything. There are way too many &#8220;musts&#8221; circulating. </p><p>The hardest and also most exciting thing about any creative life is figuring out your own path. If we mature alongside our writing, we enjoy (finally) the sweet self-awareness to set aside advice not right for us, without feeling the need to criticize the advice-giver, I might add. </p><p>I hate seeing writers play by someone else&#8217;s rules, and of course it happens daily.  I always know when there&#8217;s new advice circulating for writers about social media or email or whatever because everyone starts using the same tactics dictated by a well-known consultant or coach. </p><p>These people have jobs to do, <em>I have a job</em>, because people want rules, checklists, procedures, and other prescriptive measures to success which have never existed. It&#8217;s easier and sometimes faster than figuring it out yourself, but the trick is sculpting such advice to suit your needs and often abandoning it once you&#8217;ve found your way.</p><p><em>I have a job</em>. This job starts and ends with me, and I&#8217;m often trying to reduce my risk or at least pick my battles. Which means&#8212;so I&#8217;ve long believed&#8212;being blandly agreeable.</p><p>Yet there&#8217;s no replacement for you, for <em>your voice</em>, and that&#8217;s what most people actually want. It&#8217;s a hard lesson to learn, and I&#8217;m in recovery.</p><div><hr></div><p>Do you want to read more personal stuff from Jane like this? Be careful where you click.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://janefriedman.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://janefriedman.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p></p><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-1" href="#footnote-anchor-1" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">1</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>I did not fact-check this quote initially. After several rounds of editing, I decided I should, lest someone tell me I&#8217;m wrong. It seems Edison <a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/19/edison-no-rules/">really did say this</a>.</p></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Truth Is: I Don't Love Books. There, I Said It.]]></title><description><![CDATA[It's even possible I actively dislike books.]]></description><link>https://janefriedman.substack.com/p/the-truth-is-i-dont-love-books</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://janefriedman.substack.com/p/the-truth-is-i-dont-love-books</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jane Friedman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jul 2023 17:03:05 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_unJ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff78c99bd-eb6c-412d-bcac-6f268b24d56c_679x690.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ve given hundreds of interviews during my publishing career, and most people ask an innocent enough question about my origin story. </p><p><em>Did you always want to be a writer? Why do you love books? Why publishing?</em> </p><p>I hate these questions. I complain about them to my husband. Still, I try to be polite and answer anyway. Sometimes I even tell the truth: I fell into reading, writing, and publishing due to circumstance and lack of options&#8212;not because of any lifelong dream or childhood obsession. </p><p>I grew up in a farming and coal-mining community of 2,000. My mom read a lot, and probably because of her I ended up reading a lot, too. We had a handful of books at home&#8212;books were expensive and hard to get&#8212;so we read what was available at the town&#8217;s one-room library. That means I read countless volumes of Sweet Valley High and Encyclopedia Brown, Beverly Cleary, and Anne of Green Gables.</p><p>My role models were my teachers, and my mom was a teacher and librarian. I excelled in most subjects. In middle school I gravitated toward English and literature because those teachers were better. In high school I liked the sciences and foreign languages because <em>those</em> teachers were better. While I absolutely loved computers, there were no opportunities to pursue that interest. No A/V club either.</p><p>But there were school newspapers, and the cheapest and easiest thing for me to pursue during my youth was writing and reading. Frankly, my writing skills were average at best. My reading skills: also average. My first SAT verbal score was 400.</p><p>When it came time to consider college and what to study, I&#8217;d already been stereotyped by everyone as a bookworm. If you&#8217;re shy, introverted, terrible at sports and allergic to being outdoors, well, what do you major in but English? (Or, in my case&#8212;since my chosen college offered it&#8212;creative writing.) </p><p>Once upon a time, I wore shirts like this:</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_unJ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff78c99bd-eb6c-412d-bcac-6f268b24d56c_679x690.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_unJ!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff78c99bd-eb6c-412d-bcac-6f268b24d56c_679x690.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_unJ!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff78c99bd-eb6c-412d-bcac-6f268b24d56c_679x690.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_unJ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff78c99bd-eb6c-412d-bcac-6f268b24d56c_679x690.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_unJ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff78c99bd-eb6c-412d-bcac-6f268b24d56c_679x690.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_unJ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff78c99bd-eb6c-412d-bcac-6f268b24d56c_679x690.jpeg" width="473" height="480.6627393225331" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f78c99bd-eb6c-412d-bcac-6f268b24d56c_679x690.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:690,&quot;width&quot;:679,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:473,&quot;bytes&quot;:48413,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_unJ!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff78c99bd-eb6c-412d-bcac-6f268b24d56c_679x690.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_unJ!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff78c99bd-eb6c-412d-bcac-6f268b24d56c_679x690.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_unJ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff78c99bd-eb6c-412d-bcac-6f268b24d56c_679x690.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_unJ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff78c99bd-eb6c-412d-bcac-6f268b24d56c_679x690.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>If I found this in my closet today, I&#8217;d burn it (with apologies to cats). I don&#8217;t care about books for their own sake. I think the vast majority of books shouldn&#8217;t be published in the first place. I scoff at arguments that books foster great empathy. Even if true, it&#8217;s a tiny number of books, and many other things foster empathy just as well. Books are not that special or wholesome. People today use books as therapy, self-care, identity tools, status symbols, fame vehicles, authority markers&#8212;all sorts of reasons that make me want to distance myself from the whole operation of book publishing.</p><p>While I might have honestly been a bookworm at one time, that chapter of my life ended long ago. </p><p>This causes some obvious problems.</p><p>I&#8217;m given books all the time. It&#8217;s the first thing that most writers and clients want to send me. I continuously accept books from people at conferences. I buy books when I attend events out of respect to the author and/or venue. I answer endless questions about what books I&#8217;m (not) reading and my favorite books and what books changed my life and the last, best book I read.</p><p>There was a five-year period where I talked about the same book over and over again in interviews hoping no one would notice because I wasn&#8217;t reading books. (That book was <em>What Technology Wants</em> by Kevin Kelly.)</p><p>Even family and close friends gift me books at holidays and birthdays. People naturally assume a book is the safest and most desired gift.</p><p>In 2010, I had dinner with a dear high school friend whom I hadn&#8217;t seen since graduation in 1994. When I made a joke that expressed cynicism about books, my friend immediately corrected me: &#8220;That&#8217;s not bookworm Jane.&#8221; The great dissonance of my life was already in full swing.</p><p>As far as average Americans go, I&#8217;m in the majority: only 20% of US consumers are book consumers<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-1" href="#footnote-1" target="_self">1</a>&#8212;people who regularly buy books and consider it an important part of their lives. </p><p>One of the great ironies of my work is delivering exhortations to authors to read more books to understand their genre and write a better book. Great writers read, but at the start of my career, I discovered a shocking number of aspiring authors don&#8217;t read books, not even in their own genre. For me it begs the question of why write and publish books then? Often it&#8217;s an effort to gain validation, status, prestige, fame, or life beyond death&#8212;all valid reasons of course.</p><p>I consider myself a writer, but the last thing I want to do is write a book. It&#8217;s a hellishly complex task with few rewards (especially monetary). It requires a mixture of delusion, ambition, and determination that defies good sense. I&#8217;d rather write anything else and most days you&#8217;ll find me reading anything else&#8212;mostly long-form journalism, essays, and countless newsletters.<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-2" href="#footnote-2" target="_self">2</a></p><p>So why do I educate writers about books? If you&#8217;re paying close attention, you know I personally avoid that. I teach about the business of writing. I focus on the mechanics of the industry surrounding books. And I have a keynote talk I&#8217;ve been giving for years, &#8220;Thinking Beyond the Book.&#8221; Yes, I&#8217;m trying to talk writers out of the book, to shake them out of this belief that the book is something sacred or the best way to reach their goals. In fact, it&#8217;s one of the worst.</p><p>P.S. This <a href="https://gwern.net/book-writing">article</a> makes a better argument than I ever could about the dubious rewards of writing and publishing a book.</p><div><hr></div><p>Do you want to receive more personal stuff from Jane like this? Be careful where you click.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://janefriedman.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://janefriedman.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-1" href="#footnote-anchor-1" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">1</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>According to Peter Hildick-Smith of The Codex Group, <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/trade-shows-events/article/92390-u-s-book-show-human-connection-powers-the-book-business.html">who cited the figure at the 2023 US Book Show</a>.</p></div></div><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-2" href="#footnote-anchor-2" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">2</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>I will admit to having three books in progress right now: <em>Warhol</em> by Blake Gopnik, <em>Man and His Symbols</em> by Carl Jung, and<em> The History of the World in Two Hundred and Forty Pages</em> by Ren&#233; S&#233;dillot.</p><p></p></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Oh, are you curious about Jane's very personal newsletter?]]></title><description><![CDATA[It might be coming soon. It might not.]]></description><link>https://janefriedman.substack.com/p/coming-soon</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://janefriedman.substack.com/p/coming-soon</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jane Friedman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 May 2023 21:11:03 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!iTVE!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F97b83543-d020-4634-bbc7-52d1bda84e95_177x177.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I should really be working on a revision of my book, but I can&#8217;t help myself.</p><p></p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://janefriedman.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://janefriedman.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>