Traditional publishing and the gift of patience

A wise woman (my agent) once told me to have patience.
Publishing has changed, she said, and what once took four to six weeks can take months.
I admit.
I thought maybe that was a bit of an overstatement.
But here we are nearly seven months into the submissions process with two passes and four editors still undecided. Well, I say undecided. The reality is that as of last month, they still hadn’t read my manuscript. They are busy.
Busy.
Busy.
Busy.
I understand better than ever now the pull toward self-publishing. This age of electronics and technology should have made things easier, and it has in many ways. But it has also added new layers of complications to the publishing process.
Advances in technology have made it easier to bombard editors with manuscripts. In the old days (like less than a decade ago) agents had to be more selective because each manuscript cost money to print and mail. Not so anymore.
Editors and agents are reading manuscripts on their Kindles, their Nooks and their iPads.
They are easy to receive, easy to edit and easy to read.
The savings in paper, printing and shipping costs is undeniable.
For the planet, this is a good thing.
Yeah, for the planet!
But for editors, it means this:
Bigger slush piles.
Heavier workloads.
Higher expectations.
Slower turn-arounds.
And, unfortunately, that’s not so good for me.
I have options, and self-publishing is one them. But there’s a huge trade-off. Self-publishing has no gatekeepers, no one evaluating manuscripts pre-publication, helping readers decide how to spend their time and money. Successful self-publishers must have more than great books. They must also excel in business, especially in the realms of marketing and promotion, and they must be willing to make huge investments of time.
Um, that’s not me.
I don’t want to start at the base of the publishing mountain, pushing through all the other climbers and struggling to the top. I don’t mind a good promotional workout, but I’d like a lift, please. I’d like the lift to the midway point that comes with traditional publishing via the publisher’s credibility with booksellers, readers and reviewers.
I know.
There is a price.
I have to pay with patience.
So here I am, trying to forget the manuscripts that sit in those editors’ in-boxes, focusing instead on the novel I just finished, the one that will most certainly need revisions when beta readers pass it back to me.
Here I am, turning back to my first novel, which I shelved for a while, trying to pick up the pace in the first one hundred and twenty pages.
Here I am, thinking up characters, plots and settings for yet another novel.
Here I am re-thinking.
Maybe patience isn’t a “price,” but rather a gift. Without patience, I’d be out there promoting and marketing self-published novels while juggling my home life of four young kids and a traveling husband. I wouldn’t be writing, at least not as much.
Writing is what I love.
So the patience that is necessary for traditional publishing is allowing me to do what I love.
Hmm.
I guess that’s a pretty good trade-off.
I’ll take it.

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