I just sent this to a literary agency. Because I love publishing. Actually, I love books. I owe you an apology. I’m on Facebook, but I never see it. I don’t want to see it. So I saw this agency on Twitter. Apparently on Facebook, if you hit return the whole thing blips out. I have no idea of whether those comments I made there are there or not. It doesn’t matter, I am going to say what I have to say. Or go crazy. I am already crazy. I am writing novels now, because I have to. If I don’t work, my head explodes. I had a film agent once, and the pressure put on these guys reduces them below mid-mangement. Writers are dealing with below mid-management. Executive Vice President of a film group that never made a film. Even their titles are patently absurd and beneath contempt. Hollywood will eat you alive. Film agents are extremely nervous. It’s a day to day job. They work at agencies like CAA at will. They can be fired tomorrow and you will never hear from them again.

They are not your friend.

I am here to tell you that when the door closes, they laugh at writers.  I have sat in on editorial meetings with so much jolly jolly at how so-and-so is Miss Sugar Nut, and I happen to know Miss Sugar Nut, and he’s one of the best writers in America. But when those doors are closed, the hate seeps in. A lot of it is just jealousy.

You are writing. Do not think for an instant, that they don’t want to be doing the same exact thing. They used to write, but they failed at it. So now they tell other people how to write. Again, it’s boiler plate.

If it looks like it’s too tight to fit into their stereotypes they think are necessary to get ahead, and good for the brand, you are not getting published.

If you write about them, it better be the official fairy tale about fairy tale publishingland, and how it is an opportunity, or rather This Is Never Going To Be An Opportunity. You are going to find out that they are going to have a lot to say, and again they want your next book to have direct analogies to the first book because that is how books sell. Phooey. Become too difficult to work with. Until writers butch up, and use their voices if they have one, nothing will change. Publishing is stuck. Zuck will tell you Facebook is not a publisher.

Please. I never see Facebook because I can shovel stuff there from other platforms. I do not need to look at the thing.

These people are not your friends.

I am beginning to use the same line in anything I write in a public way.

“I am a communist.”

I am a communist. But this makes their eyes widen just a bit.  They’re going to remember you.

Watch what happens when you walk into their office unannouced. Always go unannounced. It’s YOUR money. They work for YOU. You have every right to walk into that office to see how it works. You will be shocked at the sneer.

If a publisher asks you to sign an NDA so you can’t talk about them – do not sign the ugly thing. It’s built to shut you up. Self-expression is not what they’re looking for. They’re looking for what worked the last time. You are hamburger. I don’t even recognize my books. I didn’t say that. I didn’t write that. And it reads suspiciously like some Yalie with a laptop made a few changes. Just a few changes Yalie thinks are necessary to fit into his Yalie preconceptions as what people will read. People are voracious. The little writer. Get a laptop. Why. Because it’s about the lap top.

Where do you write.

Why.

We care and we need money.

Burn your notes. They will want to own those, too.

There are no little writers.

Writers are the heros. I wanna white hat. 

Every time you let them talk you into a contract that even mentions THE NEXT WORK, laugh. I decide who the next publisher will be. They work for me. I am the boss. Not them. Fight for your work. Or go home.

The fire wall is the contention we need them.

They want you to believe this. They’re lying through their corporate teeth.

I don’t care where any of these people went to college. They wear the Ivy leage on their sleeve because it’s all they got. And who takes writers seriousy at American University Institutions. Read you book out loud before you send it. Record yourself. Securely store it. It will help you retain rights like Broadway rights, digital rights, theatrical rights, video rights, anthology rights. Why in the world would you give this away for free to appease and pet a book publisher.

My position is I am the writer because you can’t do it. Get real.

They will hate you like they hate me. I absolutely assure you, I will publish again. They play musical jobs with impunity. Editors leave to become agents. They make more money, look around. An entire staff can change in six moths because publishers treat their employees like dirt. I have had meetings with people who in six weeks are gone. But when you walk into a meeting with another publisher, there they are. Same people. Same jive turkey yada, yada, yada.

I send fatherhood magazine pieces intended for Father’s Day to magazines a full year to see it into publication on Father’s Day. Do not wait until Father’s Day. I send excerpts. Those are magazine rights. Know this. They do not work in the summer. Ever. They do not work for six weeks after Christmas. When do they actually work. No one knows. It’s another secret. Publishers are like the British Government. The Official Secrets Act is written in concrete. Almost everything they do is on the phone. The phone. Most writers never meet the editor. Those days have been over for fifty years. Meeting editors is a work break for editors. Your book will be edited by interns from Brown. Without interns, publishing would become vodoo. It’s already Vodoo. Ask your publisher to send you to the Hamburg Book Festival. This is where the big deals are made. Go to Hamburg. Ask writers what they are making. A few will talk. Most will melt into the floor if you throw water on them.

Time is money. Act accordingly. The romance of publishing is not the romance with books. Two very different things.

The New York Times and I have a war relationship. You can’t bother these people but, oh, yes, you can. I notice that no one publishing there is poor. They don’t listen. They just talk. At the audience. The reader is smarter than these people think. The New York Times uses two kinds of writers here. The academic and the social scientist. All of them employed at colleges and foundations. They pretend they are writers. Amazing. They are not writers. They are the peoople who deal with writers.

I want to read journalists who are poor themselves, but they can write about poverty, and they don’t sit in an office, because these are not the journalists who can walk the walk. They talk the talk. It’s offensive. The New York Times has a policy of: we don’t publish anyone who is poor now. Not when they went to PS Snowdrift 116. I don’t much care to read about their childhood poverty in 1911. World War One is over. Stubborn editors demand paper.

You set the stage. Not them.

Or they will exploit you. It’s what they do. Producers call me. I do not call them.

Don’t have a phone. I only use burners. Other writers are the ones who are going to hate you the most because you don’t follow rules they have spent their entire lives following religiously. Piffle.

Agents at writing conferences are fishing.

Go to the ABA. Go to the bar. This is where you will find everyone. I have been to the Agents Rooom, and it’s always empty. Why. Because the agents are at the bar. Don’t you dare drink.

And do not talk about your disability if you have one. They will run.

Write about it.

Let them eat cake.

Most editors are alcoholics. Boozing with editors is a game for sharks. Don’t do it. Be careful who you swim with.

I have given key note addresses to conventions. For my last one, they made it very clear. They wanted funny. I am not Lucy. There is no Ricky. No Little Ricky. No Ethel. No chocolates.  A few Freds. And no nightclub starring Lucy in disguise. I have worked at the Federal Reserve. Buy burner phones. It’s not all Paul Krugman. I love Paul. But sometimes, he’s wrong. Inflation is not going away.  Do not write about economics. Please, writers, understand that life is filled with desperate people. Desperate people in publishing times ten. And these people will swing a baseball bat to your metaphorical knees. You will be described by a media that wants fresh meat, and if you think they will go with what you are saying or have written about, or have been inundated by so much spin, you’ll be the one who is spinning. Who is that. Oh, it’s me. But I didn’t say that. You did now.

Agents will scream that none of this is true and that I making it all up.

What is it I have to lose. Nothing. I’m going to write about what I have seen. Don’t write what you know. Write what you don’t know, but have discovered. The rocks are there. Turn them over.

Be relentless. We are ALL busy.

Get book cover approval. Demand it. Art Directors will hate you, but too bad. No one is going to tell you any of this. But me. Too many writers are compliant. Why compliance when ALL of these people are working for YOU.

But we comply. I’m sick of it.

I’ve been organizing a boycott of the New York Times Comments Section. I’m tired of the cherry-picking. It is not comment moderation. It is not an issue of civility. It is about parroting the party line so the New York Times can maintain their insistence they are inclusive.

Umm, how do you define inclusion. I have high-functioning autism and I have to fight every step of the way. Poor people are taking a beating. They have no voice. A bunch of nonprofits is not a voice. They are corporations and act accordingly. They are inclusive on paper. In practice, they’re all bubbles. Hold them to their publication dates. If they do not make them, take back the work. That day. Withdraw permission to publish. They will fight you tooth and nail. Any cease and desist letter is still just another letter.

A person with nothing to lose is seen as dangerous because they are dangerous.

Don’t comment at the New York Times.

Ask them what comments are for. They will tell you flat out, marketing. Comments are owned by the people who own them.

There is a dissonance between writing, and political correctness even if you have a staff of five.

If you are poor, you won’t know any of this. I still want you to write. I want to read about poverty by someone who has that beat, and can tell me how it works. Do you throw books at walls. I do. Academics, go home.

Poor people know what it is like to be poor. Publish them.

No poor person has ever, ever been published there. A writer who is poor today will be shown the door by security. Oh, Yalies, let us genuflect.

If you If you don’t have time, why would anyone even try to connect with you. It’s a closed shop. What choice do we have if we want to make a living at this, and we are constantly, arrogantly told that if we agent ourselves (another bad idea) we will not understand the contracts (plural if you are selling movie rights), and we need someone to help poor us. You cannot interject the values of the boutique agency with corporate procedure. The two do NOT mix. You are with us, or you are with them. Surprise. The agent works for me. I do not work for the agent. The agent does NOT work for the publisher. The corporate book world (with the numbers) is more willing to deal with another corporation whose size is something they can recognize because that is the bubble they live in, too.  I did something no one does. No one. I fired ICM. I want the agent to give up the power they think they have, but let’s be real. Corporate agents will wine you and dine you. Because they can. They will tell you your time has arrived. Pump the writer up with hot air so he doesn’t go to auction. The first thing a publisher can do is make mincemeat of publication dates and you know it. You will be seduced by people with the rhetoric they love books, too. And if you don’t, then you live in a cave. If you don’t understand a boiler plate contract – ask for a better one! Ask for what you want. If you are forced to leave your office at home for a trip to Manhattan, they pay. Do not pay your way. The more they spend money on you, the more they will take you seriously as a writer. It’s not enough to write your book. Agents are right about that. Which brings us to the author’s tour. This is going to have to change. I have read in bookstores in the back next to the toilet. This is common. There is a lot of traffic that looks like crowd control so you can pee. You will not be heard above the din. What people will hear is the flush. Where’s the agent. You will be left with the tour guide. They are not your friend. I was put up in complete dives. At the level of the homeless shelter.

These places smelled. I guarantee you, you will have the book tour from hell unless you hold everyone’s feet to the fire, and you do not challenge the real status quo. Try doing six interviews during one day in places that will range from radio studios, TV studios, and I told them flat out that I would not give a single interview if they did not include a journalist who is working for Independent Media. They will see you as a pain in the butt, and you are making them work. Remember: they work for you. But that is a paradigm they will not explain. Never explain. It might lead to transparency. Heaven forbid. They want what they want. And they will jump on it immediately. If people are not jumping to grab your work, they are not going to buy it. They were all home on Zoom anyway. I see Anton works it. They have no idea how Zoom works. They yearn for days of paper and the forests it destroys. I am not kidding. They will play for time, and it’s a lawyer’s trick. I have autism. I scare them to death. Can I write about autism and how a disability can drive you, not stop you. I am driven. Driven. They are going to kick me into the street (I have written for the New York Times, and they will kick you into they street, too).  And They won’t take publication dates seriously unless you sue them. Sue them. Make your work important by standing upright with it. Writers cave.

Anything to get published. Don’t believe everything an editor tells you. They are not your friend. That is how they get away with more than you can possibly imagine.

I am sending this to the New York Times. Refuse to be patronized. It’s cyclical. After covid, they all want happy endings. I do not care what the ending is. I just want to know what you know.

Demand respect. Because you are a writer and you deserve it.

Do not believe your own press. I don’t read it. I write it. It’s a hard ass journey. It is not your time. You make your time. It is not given to you.

I am writing about that, and putting it into my next novel. 

You can, too.