If I’m being honest, I had a very specific picture of what “making it” would look like when I decided I want to be a writer for my job. It involved a beard, a writing cabin in my backyard, a dedicated team made up of agents and editors, stacks of books, and a headshot of me in a turtleneck. Maybe a pipe and an obnoxious typewriter collection.
I knew it would be hard. I knew it would take time to get there. But I believed that one day that could be real. That my family might live on C.C. Kimmel novels alone and we would all rest in our own tufted armchairs by the fire in our own living room paid for by my imagination and a steady growing readership.
I’m not saying the specific picture is good, or entirely realistic, or even what I would actually want if I thought about it more. But it is some version of it. A belief that I could write literary novels and make a nice living and live out my days in the simple rhythm of writing, publishing, rinse, and repeat.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that will ever happen.
Writing is a dying industry
I do believe that one day, in some form or another, I will publish novels. I believe I will one day make money publishing novels. I could grow a beard (longer than my current one) and maybe develop an obsession with old typewriters.
But the idea that I, or really anyone, can publish literary novels and make a good living out of it is dead.
Yes. I believe the world of writing as we know it is dead.
Will there be exceptions? Sure.
Are there people out there who disagree with me? Lots.
But before you write me off as an embittered writer who just keeps getting his novel query rejected or ignored (which is true), hear me out. These are just some of the reasons why I believe a writing career in its former iteration is dead and gone.
People don’t read books.
Now this does not mean that people don’t read, or that people are dumb, or that the books now written are somehow worse than the ones before. But the sad truth is that people don’t read physical $19.99 hardcover books the way they used to.
According to Elle Griffin, writer at The Novelleist, a third of Americans don’t read books and those who do, read an average of 2-3 per year. This means that overall, the market cannot sustain the cost of publishing most books.
Those who do read books, read them for less money
People now consume books in cheaper ways. Whether through Audible, Kindle, or paperback, people pay less money for books.
This is basic economics. When the market shrinks and prices get cut, the ability to make money in that market diminishes.
The process of traditionally publishing a book is a chaotic, unsustainable mess
The process of pitching to agents, who then pitch to editors, has always been fraught with pain and chaos. Ten years ago, if you wanted to publish a book through one of the traditional publishers you would:
Spam your query to 50-100 agents who don’t know you with the hope that one would bite.
Wait an agonizing 6-10 weeks to get a few positive responses and maybe even an offer of representation.
The agent would do the same thing to the publishing houses, with an even longer turn around, with the hopes of an offer of publication.
If you got a publishing deal, you might get a small advance and your book published two or three years later.
That was the process working. Not well, but working. However, for the problems mentioned above, publishing houses are short staffed and over-leveraged, which means they are not taking risks on books and the people in charge of acquiring books are burnt out and leaving. Agents can’t sell books to publishing houses the way they could before, so there are less agents and those who are agents are overwhelmed and even more selective.
Right now, I have queried over 100 agents and gotten a form rejection from about 30% of them after 3-6 months. I got one partial request. And then silence from the rest. This has become a standard experience for writers trying to publish through a traditional publishing house and its only getting worse.
This is unsustainable and quite possibly the worst system I have ever witnessed in my life.
The current platforms for promotion and community building are unreliable and possibly hate you.
One of the ways to get a leg up in the industry was to build your own following on Twitter or Instagram or one of the other platforms. If an agent or publisher knows that you have a sizable following on one of these platforms, you are less risky. You have a higher likelihood of selling more cheap books than those who haven’t cultivated a platform.
But social media companies don’t actually care about people. We are the product they sell to advertisers trying to sell us weight loss pills. This means that they change the algorithm regularly to sell more ads to better-suited customers.
So now, one of the few ways writers could get an advantage no longer really works. And on top of that, the work it takes to build and sustain a following on any of these sites is borderline impossible if you don’t want to make it your full time job.
I get the draw for it, and I even dabble in it here and there. But the truth is if I’m tweeting 10-15 times a day and posting Stories or Reels or Tik Toks 5-10 times a day (which is what it usually takes to get even a bit of traction), then I’m not writing books. (Not that they could sustain me if they did get published.)
The current process is particularly difficult for individuals who are doing the Work and still working to survive
There is a small subset of capable writers with the time it takes to carve out a platform, produce work at scale, run the querying rat race, and still eat and live. The subset includes:
Young writers who can afford to be poor
Rich writers who can afford to be poor
Writers who live with the financial support of a partner, (usually also young and rich)
Famous writers who already have a platform, and thus can get the support of traditional publishers
Connected writers (who are usually also young and rich)
Unfortunately, this subset does not include:
Moms and Dads with young kids
Moms and Dads with old kids
Writers who have to work to support themselves and others
Writers born without the financial safety net of wealth
Writers who aren’t connected already to the publishing industry
Writers who hate social media (could Cormac McCarthy get published today if he was just starting out?)
Writers who don’t want to write serial YA, Romance, Fantasy or Sci Fi.
If you didn’t pick up on a theme, I’ll reiterate. The current system only kind of works if you are young and wealthy enough to be unencumbered. Writers who are at a life stage where they can spend the majority of their waking hours writing, building a social media presence, querying agents and editors, submitting short stories, going to networking events and still eat and live.
Which means the current system does not work for most people. And even within that group of people it doesn’t work for, there are tiers. I know I am fortunate because of my own privilege. I was born a white, upper middle class male in the wealthiest nation in the world. I have significant advantages that I did not earn and are not fair to other writers.
If a writer is not born into the privilege I have, it’s even harder.
Now, even with all of this said, there are writers from the second list who make it through the process and get published. It takes incredible grit and work, but they do it. Unfortunately, with everything getting worse in the industry, I suspect fewer and fewer will make it through the gauntlet.
But I still want to be a writer…
I do. I really still want to be a writer. I love writing. To steal a line from Chariots of Fire, when I write, I feel God’s pleasure.
And I believe that storytelling is essential to our survival. Yes, that is dramatic. But I believe it. In the absence of shared myths and common narrative language, communities fracture.
I started this newsletter to give you an insight into what it looks like to be faithful to the Work of writing and creating art while still being obligated to the toiling work of survival and responsibility. I believe there is a way to be a professional writer, but I am now convinced that “being a writer” will have to look different moving forward than it did in the past.
I don’t know if I would say I have a solution, but I do have some thoughts. In my next newsletter, I plan on outlining a few different models for being a professional modern writer.
In the mean time, I would invite you to disagree with me. If you think I’m wrong, comment and let’s talk. I would love to be wrong.