There Are No Shortcuts - Quit Looking For The Easy Way

I have been teaching a developmental editing class this last 2+ months and I have seen a trend that I have also noticed out her on the social media lines. Authors looking for "the easy way" for things in publishing. Let me explain first using the student from the class. 

He recently emailed me after we were discussing knowing the voice and true direction editors and publishing houses look for in submissions and what they publish. For those of you not familiar with this, it is the simple fact that many publishers might look for historical romance, but the tone and voice of each of those publishers is vastly different. This student is looking to just do freelance work as an editor and wants to offer his services to a very wide range of writing styles. He asked, however, if there was a website or article that listed all of the publishers in a spreadsheet fashion that outlined the genres they accept and the voice.

Now wouldn't that be nice. 

I had to tell him, (which by the way, I had been mentioning in lectures for many of the weeks) that this is never going to happen and it takes getting out there, watching the market on sites such as Publisher's Marketplace, tracking who is buying what, and eventually reading that material.

His answer? That will take a lot of time. Yes. Yes it will. 

This idea of finding a shortcut is just a part of this new generation that seems to believe with a single tap of an app, you get ever thing you want. In today's world, we want it now and we want it all. 

Look, doing anything well takes time. Publishing is no different. It will take time to build up your readership. People have to find you, they have to like you, and more importantly, you have to have written a lot for them to want to keep coming back.

Getting your story in front of an editor or agent is not going to happen with a mass mailing, or a quick 140 word Twitter post. 

Knowing the market, knowing the industry and finding the right editor or agent is going to take time.

And I am sorry to say this, but getting a response back from the over-worked editors and agents is going to take time. 

So please people. Quit looking for the easy way out. Quit looking for those shortcuts. The odds are, if you are trying to use something that another author told you was the easy way to get your task completed, this is probably the reason why you are getting so many rejection letters.