I filled in a survey form, a follow-up for a program I participated in two years ago called Artist INC. The Mid-America Arts Alliance hosted the program, which has now moved into it’s own offices on Troost Avenue.
Artist INC was invaluable. If I had to do it again, I would put my shy, writer-guy personality aside and get more active with the other participants. My fear and other personal failings kept me from getting as involved as I should. I learned more about myself, however, and approach all social situations much differently today than I did two years ago.
As a part of the survey, I appended the following note for the people who run the program. It gives you an idea of what I attempted to do this summer and of the things I hope to get accomplished in the coming months.
I hope you enjoy my message to Artist INC.
Thank you for the survey and the opportunity to tell you more about how Artist INC has worked in my life. I don’t know that I need more support–other than emotional and internal. My Artist INC training didn’t really kick in for me until months after the program. When it did, it worked and continues to work in my practice. But the literary world is much different in some ways than the visual and performing arts. This is something I think Artist INC should take into consideration.
For instance, when I attended Artist INC and met other artists, I was stunned to find visual artists being disappointed in facing several or tens of rejections. Writers face literally hundreds of rejections. As an example, this summer, I queried 103 agents, received three requests for manuscript–about average for all writers–and was turned down by those three agents. This is the second time I’ve gone through this with the same book. In total, I’ve been turned down by 225 agents. A positive response comes through often enough to keep me going.
In June and July, I also appealed to 15 presses and one has responded positively. I’m now working with an editor who is deciding whether or not to take on my book. Still, I have my Writer’s Digest Guide to Literary Agents nearby in case I get a “no” from the editor and have to commence my labors once again. I have a good book. I believe in it. Publication is a numbers game. I may have to query another hundred agents to find the one who will represent my work. (Even then, getting an agent doesn’t mean getting a publication. That may never happen, even with the best agent.)
I’ve had better luck publishing my essays. With just under 100 submissions, I landed 12 publications in literary and other magazines in the last year. Twelve, percent return is really fabulous and my writer friends are excited for my success.
The point is that I think writers, young and old, participating in Artist INC should know that with agents and publishers, every book is the first book. There are no more Max Perkinses in the literary world.A writer/author starts over from scratch every time the publish a book,article, story. For unknown writers, those who aren’t Jonathan Rabans or Jon Krakauers, your track record counts but only barely. It’s very different from the visual and performing art worlds where I see my artist friends building clientele, commissions, getting work from contacts of contacts.
My attitude is that it’s a rare writer who makes a living from their craft. This reality would be a good lesson for all Artist INC participants. I put my head down, do the work, and get the publication–which means hours of queries, submissions, phone calls, blog-writing, attempting to know the podcasts that might be relevant for my work (and then getting on them). If I’ve done all this and if I’m lucky, if have submitted to the exact right publications, and if have caught the editor on a day and time when they are receptive to my work, then I might get a publication.
I wouldn’t expect Artist INC to teach writers how to manipulate the mechanics of writing and publication. Much of what was useful for me was the business of building platform. Other parts of the program I had to extrapolate or see the lessons as metaphorical. Yes, I can see how building circles of friends can help build my practice. The problem is that for a writer, those circles and connections need to extend literally to tens of thousands of people. Publishers are looking for built in book sales. A blog with 25,000 viewers a week, a Facebook page with 10,000 likes, an Instagram account with 5,000 followers, TED talks to hundreds of thousands. (Chris Dahlquist came the closest to understanding this component of the writer’s business.) Publishers want to see these things and it’s still a mystery to my how to build that, given needs to keep a job, take care of family, and deal with the business of living. (Platforms, by the way, may mean book sales, but they don’t mean good books. Many is the author with a platform who writes bad books.)
Some writers have done it. Jane Friedman, Cheryl Strayed, Gillian Flynn. There are others, but compared to the number of serious writers out there, these instances are just a small fraction of a fraction of a percent.
I think it would be helpful to workshop participants–literary,visual, performance–to have a writer, an author published by a press (commercial or independent), to speak to the issues writers face. There is also a place for successful self-publishers like Terence O’Malley or Aaron Barnhart, both of whom make significant bank from their efforts. Barnhart and his wife Diane Eickhoff make make a living from their books, as well a public appearances with the Missouri and Kansas Humanities council’s speakers bureaus. They have been so successful that they started publishing others’ books and now run a successful small publishing house. There is also a place for a freelance writer who makes a living from his or her work. Each of these kinds of writers/authors would transmit valuable lessons and put things into perspective for visual and performance artists.
A working writer can add to the narrative that Artist INC creates for its participants. (I realize Jose Faus is a writer but he makes most of his money from visual art.) A writer who wants publication or even to make money off their work has to move in a hundred directions, make contacts at tens of magazines, newspapers, blogs, and podcasts–just to get a publication that may pay nothing or less to nothing. The face hundreds of rejections, revisions, and new starts. A story similar to mine may help the artists and performers who would find it inspiring to know that their literary compatriots are making it with their craft despite the intense competition.
I have accepted that I will be little more than a minor literary figure who writes great books. I keep it up because I have to. I may get struck by the writer’s lightning someday. But it’s unlikely. Still, there are successes. I would like to see Artist INC include a literary component to their program that will work for writers as artists. Again, I think adding this aspect of the literary arts will help visual and performance artists working locally and regionally.
I’ve worn you out now. Please contact me anytime.
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