We have to talk about something very important, and we’re gonna talk about it right now. Let’s go next slide. The idea that traditionally published authors are as a collective getting together to keep information from you in some sort of like meeting, the idea of that is so absolutely funny to me because authors cannot and will not stop talking about ourselves and our publishing process. There are hundreds if not thousands of blogs from the blogging days of people’s entire querying, submission and publishing process with like detailed stats and dates and timelines. There are hundreds of podcasts interviews and I know because I co hosted one for over four years about how authors got their books traditionally published, sometimes after years and years of struggle. And if you don’t believe me here, it’s a very quick list of resources that you can look into right now. I’ll get out of the way so you can screenshot or just screenshot me in it. There are people right now on Twitter and TikTok telling anyone who will listen about their last full requests or how they got their agent or how they got their book deals, or even posting screenshots of rejections, like literally every bit and morsel of information that you could want. And I’ve seen much of the same in the indie community. Authors love to share information and help one another. Like sharing resources is the norm. So for anyone to come onto this or any app on Beyonce, Giselle knows Carter’s internet and say, traditionally published authors are gatekeeping the fact that they use editors or anything. We are gatekeeping for that matter.
It can only be for one of two reasons, in my opinion. A, this person genuine believes this based off no research and just vibes and wasn’t thinking or they’re trying to get views by getting you upset at other authors. People who do this are using rage and like strategic hooks, whether or not they’re based in reality doesn’t matter, to get you to interact and follow and listen to them.
They want you to be thankful that they’re not like other authors and we’ll give you the real information no one else is talking about. The issue is that sometimes nobody is talking about these things, not because we voted in our weekly secret underground cave meeting that we weren’t going to tell you the real information, but we’re not talking about it because it’s not true. Are there authors who won’t share information? Absolutely, of course. But as a collective, we won’t shut the .
You’re trying to become a publish author, extensive research from multiple credible sources and should be people from different points in their career because sometimes, the things that you learn a few years in is very different from what you’ll know when you first got started. And it’s good to have a mixture of advice from different people and from people who are in places where you want to be professionally. If you’ve already traverse the blog and podcasts and social media sees of authors who came before, you will know that the notion that information is being kept from you is false. However, it can be hard to filter down. That I completely agree with. It’s hard to know what to listen to. Absolutely. But there is no shortage of information to look into, and you will pretty quickly see that most of the authors who are doing well and have, you know, really long and successful careers, many of them who are traditionally published agree on the best practices when it comes to their journey in true traditional publishing, there will be variance, of course, but anyone telling you that you’re keeping some sort of key to being publish from you is lying for their own benefit. There’s no shortcut, there’s no key, there’s no sort of like magic recipe. The journey actually looks pretty different from everyone. The most common and accurate answer for any question in publishing is it depends.
So here’s an example of what like a more objective take on the do you need an editor thing can look like. So you do not necessarily need to have an editor look at your manuscript before querying. It’s not a requirement. And while some authors will choose to do this, the majority of traditionally published authors don’t. However, if you’d like to get an editor and you can comfortably afford to do so, there is nothing wrong with it. There are some wonderful editors out there who would be able to help you. But again, it’s not a requirement or something everyone does in secret. And anyone telling you that is a requirement probably has something to gain either monetarily or via views and attention. So if this is something that you are doing, I hope that you will consider your fellow author, because we are all workers that should be in solidarity with one another. And to try and get views and clicks and engagement without any regard to spreading misinformation and potentially hurting a new author’s career or their enthusiasm or their self esteem. I promise you, it’s not a sustainable method and it’s not going to help you in the long run.
There’s something so steeped in privilege about saying, oh, we all hire editors and just don’t tell anybody about it. When not only is that not true, but it’s also placing this additional barrier on marginalized authors who already have a harder time getting paid fairly in publishing and who usually can’t survive as easily as someone who is independently wealthy or has a help wealthy spouse or comes from wealthy parents. Now you’re telling those people you actually have this additional hidden cost that we’re, nobody else is telling you about, but I’m gonna tell you about. And if you don’t do this, then you’re at a disadvantage, placing another monetary hurdle in front of authors of color and disabled authors and queer author others and marginalize others in general and making them feel like they have less of a chance to get into publishing because of something that’s untrue, because they might not be able to afford it, is so cruel and irresponsible. You know what’s funny is that to me that sounds a lot like gatekeeping. And I mean, do what you want, but I won’t be held responsible for the side eyes at future panels. Maybe. So.
Let’s ride next slide. Thankfully, thankfully. Next time. Thankfully.