Publishing Field Report 2 – Snail Mail

Unpacking my early attempts, post-MFA, to build my practice, land an agent, get published in print, and find direction

After finishing my MFA, I had no real plan what to do next. The most obvious thing was to get to work—but where to begin, and to what end? I’d already written quite a bit, including three rough drafts of novels that I hadn’t found a further purpose for besides the learning. I’d even revised the last of these a few times based on feedback from my peers and mentors at school and felt I liked the way it was, but so far I still had almost zero understanding of how publishing worked, or how to wriggle my way in besides shots in the dark.

Bennington had held a publishing module during my last semester where they brought in an agent to advise us on how submitting and shopping books worked—very little of which stuck besides the impression that it was very difficult to beat the odds, but still decided to start there. There’d been some myth in my mind that going to school might feed me contacts or at least connect me to people who knew people, but really almost zero about my MFA classes had provided any real resources besides the craft itself. One highly accomplished professor had even told the poetry students—confused how they could have a lead to sell a book when clearly that wasn’t what most any agents worked with—that their best chance was winning a contest. Meanwhile, the whole world wasn’t quite online yet, so the best way I knew of to find contacts on my own was checking out a print directory of presses, agents, and editors from the public library, in which anyone could find listings detailing what different sorts of professionals were interested in working with, as well as a rubric for how to format and submit your work.

Most of these places required a formal cover letter, including the qualities that made you publishable, as well as 20-40 pages of a finished manuscript. If they liked it, they’d ask for the rest—simple enough. Using my parents’ printer, I produced enough copies to send my sample to 15-20 places that seemed to fit what I thought I was—literary fiction, whatever that meant. I mailed them out and started counting down the days. Over the next many months, I’d receive mostly only formal rejection letters, thanking me for sending but turning me down. Two or three spots actually requested the rest of the MS, which seemed like a huge win and immediately sent my head spinning thinking I’d nearly made it, but eventually even those passed, vaguely explaining what hadn’t worked for them in a way that gave me no inkling how to improve. I continued adding to my list, looking through magazines and other listings to find other agents I hadn’t tried, and each time I got a new “no” I’d send another out immediately, always keeping a decent number of lines in the water no matter what.

For employment during this time, I was working part time at a law firm answering phones, a job I hated and was easily able to leave behind when not at work. I was also running a micro record label with some friends and playing poker online and IRL well enough to pay at least part of my bills most months, which were already kept low by staying in Atlanta and instead of moving off to New York or something. I already failed to understand why anyone trying to make it as a writer would move to the most expensive city in the country, where time seemed at a premium. Based on what I’d seen of other writers while at school, I realized a lot of people valued socializing and hamming up their identity as an artist over sitting in a chair all day, and that just wasn’t me. I actually liked being alone in my head with my thoughts, typing away without much realistic rubric to compare my blind ambition to besides what I’d seen on campus, and I trusted that to the point that even my early attempts at professionalism felt like a lark, another gamble, rather than a be all end all. Whatever people took in trade socially from sacrificing their freedom to live fast was obviously different than whatever I was doing.

Despite my greenness, I feel lucky to have had the confidence not to up and try to change my approach to fit the system from early on, and if there’s any single actionable tip that I could offer a young writer, it might be: Keep your costs low, protect your free time, and trust your gut. Though many have found success, and maybe even a more direct path, by playing the shell game of social networking as the primary foundation of opportunity, the truth is no one knows what they are doing, and nothing of this struggle for publication is worth a shit if the work itself doesn’t come first. There must be hardly a worse feeling, deep down, than going through all the slog that even the quickest path to finding an audience requires as an end unto itself. If you don’t believe in the work, nobody else is likely going to either—and if somehow you trick your way in on elevator pitches and hot air, the proof is in the pudding. Publishing—at least at it stands now—remains a long game, and mostly no one gets anywhere real by skipping steps and hoping no one notices. Paper is temporary; memory is long. If you have it in mind that you want to publish a book someday, you likely will. Meanwhile, enjoy the ride; it’s all there is.

Even as the rejections on my novel continued coming, I found relief in imagining that as long as I kept submitting and adjusting, I’d eventually improve enough to make some headway, without even quite being certain what that meant. Did I really think I could just write a novel, mail it away, and find a future? I must have, and either way, I was determined to keep trying, like a blind lockpick. I made it a point every single day to do at least a little something toward my goal—researching outlets, sending new submissions out, and, mostly, writing. I still was far more interesting in novels than writing stories, but while at Bennington I’d finished at least a handful of shorter pieces that I felt good about, so while I was waiting for replies from agents, I turned to trying to figure out what else I could do to publish my work.

Using a similar blanket-submission strategy as I had with querying agents, I started sending out my stories en masse. I began once again with the print directory and in the backs of literary magazines, finding listings that fit what I was doing, and sending each story to 10-15 places at a time. Whenever I got a new rejection, I’d open the story on my computer, read it over through new eyes, revise whatever stood out as holding the work back (on my own terms, as best i could, understanding that all chances to improve could be for the good, but still not interested in bending out of my own element), and send it out again to somewhere else. Having work constantly in rotation that way, even if it failed to result in acceptance, gave me the feeling that any day might be the one, egging on my unsatiated desire for accomplishment with a kind of endless possibility. I started writing more and more stories, hungry to have more bullets to fire, and also seeing that the more time I spent writing, the more effective my writing, and my process in general, became.

Likewise, I started learning more and more what kinds of work ended up published where and got better at targeting my submissions toward venues where it might actually have a chance. Rather than taking that as a hindrance, a reason to kowtow to status quo, I saw it as a challenge, like forging a key to fit a lock. A writer’s style didn’t need to be a single way, after all—especially then, when viral branding was still for cereal boxes, not individuals—half the fun was the experiment, seeing how your voice changed when you came from angles that might not arrive naturally, but still bore style. Later, one of my first stories to be accepted anywhere would be the product of entering a contest centered around tribute to Barry Hannah, which served to force me to see my stories not just as weird splays of ideas soldered onto forward narrative, but as an experience, comprised of elements that came out as the work evolved, rather than needing to have a concrete arc and concept from the jump.

Also in the future, after working on the publishing side of magazines, I’d realize that a great bulk of submitted work disqualified itself simply by having no relevance where it was sent. What a surprise to realize that your odds go way up when what you’re doing shares a kinship with the editors’ aesthetics! Taking the time to do your research and being realistic with your goals gave you a huge edge over the slush-senders, who just seemed to want to see their name in print anywhere, never mind why. Rather than total nepotism, part of publishing seemed to be related to taking the time to seeking out the place where you belonged, if just for now, rather than expecting to be discovered out of thin air. Restraining one’s ego in that way—realizing that a rejection isn’t a necessarily a judgement on your character, or even a dismissal of your voice, but an opportunity to expand and refine—helped a ton versus getting discouraged and thinking it could never work. If this was supposed to be easy, what would it be worth? Wasn’t the challenge of creating an object and figuring out what it was part of the pleasure in the first place? Strange how so many people seemed to forget that the second they felt eyes on their baby, especially when it seemed to me the whole of point of literature to break molds, make work like no one else.

Even still, the enterprise of publishing in general felt very slow. It might take years, I felt, before I ever figured out what I was doing enough to find a grip, and though that felt like part of the job, too, the maniac in me already felt like I was overflowing from the structure I blindly hoped to flow through by dint of my talent and effort combined. Though I was down for the challenge, I also wondered why it all had to feel so archaic, controlled by faceless names in high rise buildings. How could anyone gain power without having to play ball? Was it even possible, or was the only path to shift your form to fit the mold, and then expand? All the authority figures I had met felt like closed cases, set up for lifelong success after having found their proper path and made good, and I supposed it was a proving ritual of sorts—a challenge to keep throwing yourself into the chasm until finally you landed, fully formed, and earned your prize.

It wouldn’t be until I discovered the burgeoning universe of online and indie publishing, however—a pursuit none of my technically deficient peers had yet to discover, mostly—that I really began to find my stride. Next time, I’ll pick up there and start unpacking the early days of online publication and how that led both to landing my first agent, establishing my identity as an artist, and perhaps most importantly: discovering a community of likeminded peers alongside whom my idea of career and life in general soon would never be the same.