Part of the Problem

I came across a tweet from Pyr Books today that illustrates part of what I see as the problem with the current publishing model. Pyr tweeted the following:

“Agents, please stop telling me your client’s book is “unlike most other fantasy books.” If that’s the case, I am unlikely to be interested. See, I buy fantasy books for people who read fantasy. Don’t insult their tastes by telling them they’ve never read anything good before this.”

Then, an hour later, Pyr said the following:

“As Pyr closes in on 100 titles this September, I confidently believe we have pushed the envelope in all sorts of directions.”

So wait, you don’t want agents to send you things that are “unlike most other fantasy books”, but you boast about pushing the envelope?

To me it sounds like it’s semantics. If the agent had written and said, “I have a book that pushes the envelope”, would you have been interested? Does the editor at Pyr books reject a manuscript simply because he or she didn’t like the wording of the agent’s e-mail? In a later tweet, Pyr Books says that “no agent [is] better than [a] bad agent.” It sounds to me like this publisher is more worried about who the agent is than the content of the manuscript.

We like to think that books get published because they are good. This is usually the case, but not always. It’s equally untrue that if a manuscript is rejected, it must therefore be bad.

I was following one of those tweetups a few weeks ago and an agent said that the most important thing she looked for in a manuscript was quality. She didn’t care about anything else, “It’s all about the writing”. Five minutes later she said, “I’ve never represented anything from the slush pile. All my clients are referred to me.” Wait, so which is it? By some cosmic chance are the people who submit to you all horrible writers? Or does knowing somebody help an author get published? How many aspiring authors have the advice given about going to conferences so you can meet editors and agents? Isn’t it all about the content of the manuscript?

In a digital model, the good stuff rises to the top because of merit, not because an agent used the right phrase, or because the author knew a guy who knew a guy.

Please note, I’m not saying that stuff published today isn’t any good. Far from it. I’m saying that there are a plethora of good manuscripts out there, and the current model is keeping those manuscripts from seeing the light of day. A digital model tears down this wall, and gives us a wider selection from which to choose.