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You Are In Love | Taylor Swift

The Tortured Poets Department, April 19 🤍

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce at the Super Bowl

TAYLOR SWIFT & TRAVIS KELCE singing "Love Story" at the Chiefs Super Bowl afterparty (Feb 12, 2024)

Flashback to the last night we’d ever sleep, and the first night of an album that would be nominated for 6 GRAMMYs! 🕰️

TAYLOR SWIFT — THE ERAS TOUR

Profile perfection ❤️‍🔥🖤❤️‍🔥

RICK GRIMES | THE ONES WHO LIVE

Season 9 Promo Shoot 🔥🏹🔥

📷 James Minchin III

#Norman #TWD #Daryllove #promo #archer #gorgeous #lovethese #season9 #sexiestmanalive

I find it personally offensive how many bad writers can get published so easily.

I used to find it reassuring, like, "Haha, wow, if THIS can get published..." but now I take it to mean "It doesn't matter if your book is good or not, all that matters is if you're in the right social circles (and you're not)"

As someone who used to acquire for an indie publisher ... it sucks on the other end, too. We don't WANT to work on shitty books with shitty writing. But bossman wants to make money, and shitty writer has marketing clout/knows the right people/is already published (even if it's only online/ebook).

I used to read the most AMAZING submissions I'd be forced to pass on. Like, there was one, a literary fantasy featuring a bi deaf protagonist who learns how to navigate a spectrum of relationships while discovering herself (I don't want to give too many details out of respect to the author/don't want her concept stolen) and I couldn't get it acquired no matter how thorough my proposal and marketing plan was because she was a debut author with fewer than 10k Twitter followers and we needed that advance money for another Fifty Shades knockoff (this was a few years ago lol).

BUT PLEASE DON'T LET THAT DISCOURAGE YOU! If you're a writer, and you're trying to get published, don't give up!! If your first novel isn't getting traction with either a house or agency, publish it yourself on amazon. Get that "debut" moniker away from your name. Prove you can sell your shit and keep working.

A good agent will work with you to come up with a marketing/publicity proposal. That will be huge in getting houses to notice your work - makes the acquisitions team's job easier as they can point to it and tell bossman "we have a plan". Look online for titles that have high ratings/are on the NYT list that can be compared to yours. That helps give acquisitions an idea of what they're getting into - and how to represent your book to their ED/publisher.

A good agent will also help you target editors/imprints whose lists match your book, increasing your odds of getting positive feedback or even constructive feedback. If I had a submission that just wasn't quite ready for publication, I'd give detailed notes of what I wanted and ask them to revise and resubmit.

Keep writing! Even if a book isn't picked up, start your next. It's so attractive to see an author with several unpublished works ready to be polished if you already like the work that's submitted. And more writing only refines your skills.

Yes, bad writers get published. And too many good writers, even when published, go unrecognized (if you like southern gothic fiction a la Where the Crawdads Sing, go read The Past is Never, which came out four months earlier and got NO national attention but is BEAUTIFUL). Be such a good writer that you break those odds.

Because you can. I've read your stuff on Tumblr. On Ao3. On Fanfiction.net. On Wattpad. You can do it.

This is actually practical advice; thank you.

I cannot stress this enough, write it poorly. Write the shittiest draft you possibly can, stick 'ah fuck something happens here and now they're fighting' to get over

Write the worst fucking version you possibly can and stick it in a folder and forget it for a month or two before you look at it again. You know what you have now?

A first draft. And with enough time to think some new thoughts about it, you'll soon end up with a better, second draft! And eventually, you'll end up with something you'd be perfectly okay with letting other people read!

You'll never believe this process works no matter how many times you do it, but it totally does. You just have to drag your brain kicking and screaming to that blank page and get the bones down first.

Write the shit out of that shit.

Norman on set, so fine