Heard it Through the Grapevine

>I know that end-of-year "everything is happening at the same time" feeling all too well. Good luck with your deadlines!

What I've learned in the publishing industry is that there are numerous ways to skin the cat and no one way is 100% perfect.

The trick is to make sure that when you do place your trust in a publisher or agent that you're not getting suckered into a bad relationship.

This is why I tell everyone: Go to Preditors and Editors, follow up on Writers Beware, run a search on Absolute Write forums. See what the general buzz is about something before making a decision.

And if it smells bad, it probably isn't wholesome. As they say, no agent is better than a bad agent…

>There is no clear path to success, but the clear path to failure is to try and please everybody.
The same holds true if you take everybody's advice. Even experts will have different advise, often contradictory, for the same problem.

>Worry? I'm Irish Catholic and Jewish. Worry is my middle name.

And great post, fun reading.

>Good advice (from a trustworthy source). During my years of medical practice, I can't tell you how many times I had to disabuse patients of notions they got from such trusted medical sources as someone's site on the Internet that was hawking a particular nostrum or technique, or from well-meaning friends relating the experiences of their brother-in-law's uncle.

My mother taught this to me at an early age. She was talking about people saying bad things about me. But the might as well have been discussing questionable advice. "Consider the source."

>Good advice for life in general.

>I've had to counsel people in the same situation, particularly about worry in promotion. The key is to do what fits you and, as you said, communicate with the people directly involved in the project.

>Great advice, Rachelle! I'm super thankful for agents and publishing professionals who thake the time to blog and communicate helpful advice to writers and therefore take some of the "freaking out" out of the writing world.

>I think a lot of writers suffer from a similar deficit. We can be perfectly competent professionals in our day jobs and yet lose that confidence very quickly when someone who sounds authoritative begins saying something that contradicts what we believed to be true. The key (at least for me) is remembering that all my research (and knowledgeable contacts) means more than any single opinion – with the exception of one – and that if we hear something contradictory the best thing to do is just what your author did: call one of those valuable contacts or do some research and see whether concern is warranted.

>I know too many glory seekers who are more interested in hearing themselves talk and less interested in helping. I prefer getting my information from agents and publishers and reading about the market.

I love reading author blogs just to see what they are thinking. With so many would-be writers writing about writing it's created a white noise so the good advice gets lost in it.

Research is important to every writer.

>This is such great advice, and I'm glad you enumerated it. I haven't exactly had this kind of problem, but I once had a friend offer to help me get published. Not to belittle his offer, but he'd taken a writing course and thought he understood it all. I have one book published, and though I did it all bass-akwards, I'd done a lot of research in an effort to improve my writing, my platform, and my knowledge of the industry as a whole. When he made his offer, the first thing I thought of is "what are his qualifications" to help me along on this journey? So I asked. I mean, we went to the same high school over 30 years ago, but other than that, I hadn't been in his life, I honestly didn't know. He blew up – it nearly cost us our friendship. The subject has never been brought up again. I'm still searching for the perfect agent, and I will get published again – hopefully soon. However, doing homework didn't stop with graduation.

>I've had people who know absolutely NOTHING about publishing or writing tell me that they know more than published writers, and that any books by them are filled with lies. I was stunned at that level of arrogance.

It is so important to guard your heart by guarding your ears and be careful who you listen to. It will determine what you think, and as a man thinks, so is he. Works with writing as with everything else. It is good that your clients came directly to you.

>Great advice! Can't say I've ever had this happen to me. The only stuff I've ever heard about publishing has come from my own research. But I imagine that 'know it alls' preach this kind of confusion a lot. And i honestly hope I never get caught in it.

>A good reminder not to believe everything you hear and to check with those who do know.

That's one of the reasons I'm so glad I have an agent, and a friend in publishing- I can check. I also make sure that I read who a blogger is, so I know what sort of experience they are coming from.

In my blog I give my sources for info that comes to me from people who actually do know what they're talking about. I look for that in others as well. It's a bit of a safguard.

>A few years ago, I had someone tell me I could not, under any circumstances, include slapstick humor in horror and expect to be published. No one writes like that because no one has any interest in it. I came very close to having a panic attack as I trusted this person immensely. I sent that short story to one of my favorite publications and was convinced I would be blacklisted from every seeing anything in print there.

Two days later, I received word that the story would be published in that magazine. The editor loved the slapstick approach and was happy to get some funny horror for once.