Being A Professional Author Takes Work

I don't know how many times I have received an email from an author who didn't do their homework. They simply found my name, among a whole list of other agents, and just sent out a mass email. In most of these cases, this author even sent a project that I just do not represent. But here is where it gets funny. Many of these times, I get an email back telling me that having to go to every person's website to get that information is just too much work. 

Guess what? It is going to be work. 

Publishing, like any other profession out there takes work to get into and takes work to be successful. Jobs are not things where you can just throw a dart and make a million dollars. 

I do believe a lot of this comes from the way social media is shaping our thinking, combined with the push self-publishing companies make telling us that this is the easy way to get things done. Consider many of these employment sites on the Internet. I love the commercial that is out for Indeed.com where a guy is baking cookies talking about how easy it is to get a job. He just shoved his resume out there, and in the middle of making those cookies, someone just sent him an email saying he was hired. Oh how we all wish it was that easy.

In the publishing community, I see the same thing. Groups of people are always emailing me wanting me to just go to their website on a given day and just pick from authors who I want to sign. Do these people really want to work with me? They don't even know who I am? They are just hoping someone will just offer them a job.

I know I have said this before, but again consider the message self-publishing companies send out to authors. Sign with us and we will have your book out there in 48 hours. Of course, they have said nothing about the money it is going to cost, or the fact that there is no marketing for your book. Authors go into this thinking once that book is out there on Amazon they make money. Um? Who are you?

In simple terms, there are no short cuts. There is not easy way to get a job, to be a great novelist, or to do this as a business. Finding an agent, finding an editor, marketing that book, getting sales up DOES take time and it DOES take work. 

So, before you email me telling me to it is too hard and I should just email you when I am open again to submissions, think again. This is part of YOUR job!