I spent a good chunk of last week writing about symbolic capital in the publishing industry, then read Nic Mamatas Ask Nick column over on LitReactor where he answered about why some writers get multiple failures on their resume and still draw advances.
The answer, of course, is that publishing isn’t an even game and some people are “special.” Largely because, frankly, publishing is an industry where Symbolic Capital matters and there’s a whole lot of people involved who come from money and treat that capital like it’s very important.
But that belies the intelligence and wit that Mamatas brings to the topic:
Are you special? Depends. Where did you go to school? Who did you meet there? Where do you live now? How close is it to the L? Who are your best friends; who do you date? Do they all have the same “publishing haircut” (asymmetrical bobs for women, Princetons for men)? Is exposed brick good or bad? Are you suspicious of anyone who can write a book in a year? Are you from a “good” family (which is different than a “good family”)? Do these questions make perfect sense to you? No? You’re not special.
Some authors are subsidized despite failures due to the reputational economy within publishing. While this is mostly a phenomenon in literary publishing (including literary non-fiction), it happens in genre publishing as well. Gene Wolfe was a thrilling talent and rightly considered one of the best science fiction/fantasy writers of the 20th century, but he published his share of clunkers and only occasionally made any money for his publisher—however, his editor was very prominent and thus Wolfe was protected from his own commercial failures. It’s not bad that some people are special; you wouldn’t want to enter a bookstore in a society where the accountants made all the decisions rather than just eighty percent of them.
Go read the full column if you’ve got any interesting in writing. And, for the love of all that’s holy, go track down a copy of Nick’s essays about writing, Starve Better, which is one of the best books on writing you’re ever going to come across.
