Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2013-02-02 03:08 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2013-02-02 03:08 pm
[ SECRET POST #2223 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2223 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 06 pages, 127 secrets from Secret Submission Post #318.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
no subject
When I was 28... and by that I mean literally "yesterday"... I discovered that a certain bestselling author who just happens to also be my mom's favourite author in a certain genre is a regular customer at the store where I work.
After a moment of that "oh holy SHIT, are you kidding me??!?!!" revelation, I saw that she did not appear to be in a big hurry to get anywhere, she was doing a little browsing around the shop, so I casually and respectfully told her that my mother admired her work and that I was an aspiring author and just chatted about the sorts of things I was learning about publishing and whatnot. She was very responsive and offered insights about some of the kinds of things I was trying to publish, most of which I already knew factually, but I did not detain her or press her to give me overly specific information. Ultimately, I didn't technically get any really useful input, but that's not what I wanted from her, because I was not interrogating her -- I was having a casual, friendly, polite conversation with a customer who happened to have a certain interest in common with me.
That was still a valuable interaction for me. I mentioned briefly three things I am trying to publish and explained, in one sentence apiece or so, what I thought was the best approach and how well I hoped or expected my writing to do on the open market. Just having her converse with me in that way made me feel like I had correct and well-thought-out ideas about what I was doing... I had rational expectations... and it was nice to get just that knowing smile and nod when I said that the process of publishing is likely the most complicated and frustrating thing I had ever done in my life.
Just a smile and a nod. Just a friendly conversation from someone who was successful at what I was trying to do just for the sake of being able to say... well, I did it, not expecting success because the market for literature is strange and feral and unpredictable. But after spending at LEAST 2 or 3 hours of every single day for the past month and a half trying to figure out heads or tails about what I'm doing and feeling like I know LESS than I did when I started, after having spent the previous day dedicating 27 hours straight to researching and editing and conference calls with prospective publishers of this and that and just having that little bit of validation that yes, it IS this hard for all of us, and yes, you're right that the one book may do marginally well but the other may never earn you back the money you spend to print it... that's damn meaningful. That's damn meaningful.
So... there really is a lot to be said for having "time and place" judgment. I wouldn't have done anything but ring Ms. Author up and give her the same "have a good day" I give all my customers if it had seemed as if she wanted to just get her stuff and leave or wasn't in the mood to talk. Gaiman, in this case, seems to have developed an excellent "time and place" filter -- the appropriate PLACE for fans to ask him stuff is tumblr, and the appropriate TIME is whenever they feel like asking it and he'll get to it whenever he feels like it. That's a good system, if it works for both the fans and the author, and it's really really great that he DOES answer questions from fans like that. As silly and n00bish and validation-seeking as those questions may be. He gets to pick which ones to answer. He gets to pick when he does it. And maybe letting fans have that established place to submit queries gives him less clutter to deal with elsewhere.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2013-02-03 04:34 am (UTC)(link)