I have been blogging about horrific experiences in the world of "para publishing" freelancers The most recent examples might be the most problematic. A published author referred a book coach she knew. I described, with confidence, the status of the project and outlined the minimal support I needed. This "book coach" responded appallingly: she made me out to be a bad guy for "elevating myself." Where's the emoji for shocked face. I may have blogged about this three years ago with experiences with freelance editors and confidence/ insecurity. This book coach told me "she didn't know who to refer to me who I would respect" because "I elevated myself."
So, let me understand this, because I am confident in my competence level, above people who try to take charge of the proposal project? I'm confident in the foundation product I've produced, and I have "proof of concept" from industry professionals who have reviewed it and didn't have any suggestions to change. And I am the problem that a freelancer cannot accept that it is nearly finished and needs only minor support to complete instead of overhaul? That's MY fault?
As a competent, confident woman, personally I find other women like this to be what is wrong with the world. Why we can't have nice things. Why women can't be competent and confident, because to other women like this one, then there's something wrong with her (me).
Let me go back to the beginning, because I started the project optimistically. Perhaps an overview will help compare the reality of the project with the commentary from these "para" publishing individuals, though I've blogged about many experiences already. This proposal I expected to be fairly easy to knock out, because it's based on six years of well developed content. The first challenge was just to organise the content. I found an editor who was the one to mention I needed help developing the proposal, and I said yes, except there was not clear communication about the expectations on his end what this looked like versus my expectations, despite my request to have a call to get on the same page. Oh well, I did try to manage expectations there.
Because I thought we were on the same page, it did prompt me to start describing the breakdown where content could go into chapters. From there, I thought "ok, rather than pay someone, which I don't have money to do, I can probably do a better job anyway myself." There had also been the ghostwriter who wanted me to pay him $3000 to do something, like research to be less of an expert than me? I don't know. At every step, I got enthusiasm about the importance and potential of the project. Because this project is not "self-help" or "memoir" and is more specialised, it is harder to find people with the experience to work on it. I found either they have done this area or they haven't.
I happened to be mentoring a younger woman during a career transition this pring, and her father was an editor at a newspaper. He offered to help me, and she connected us, and he offered to beta read the proposal for free, which is amazing! That was a major cost savings. He came back to me with zero comments or edits, and wanted to refer me to someone in his network who had moved into a big five editing position with the project, due to the topic everyone considers of high importance. That caused me some anxiety how to navigate, but things have gone well so far, and she's agreed to discuss generally insight into publishing. I will find that valuable not to feel at the mercy of agents to get my bearings there. (In addition, I am trying to help a young graduate find positions to launch her career in publishing, and that might be a point of common interest with the editor).
That felt great, honestly, to have confirmation about my competency level in churning out a good quality first draft of the proposal content. The outline structure, particularly chapter breakdowns, have been the challenge for me. Six years of content and well developed arguments have a lot of themes that overlap. I feel good about the structure of the outline, in six sections, and have broken down into detail the structure of the content, but have no idea how to break down and summarise the chapters therein. That's where I felt I could use, honestly - minimal, support. That has been the huge obstacle, because it is such a minor part of the project that's left, and that's where the mental health frustrations began.
A friend who is a writer for Forbes had been an early supporter, offering her time generously to help me with verbiage. However, she works with business owners to publish books to build their business, and was not exactly connecting to the goals for this book potentially to be a best-seller. That was frustrating to me. I am flat broke (something editors have had a hard time understanding as well), and at some point she said I should self-publish, which requires footing marketing costs yourself, and does not achieve the goal of best-seller by any means. Not even close. Zero self-published books become best-sellers. That's just how it goes.
I joined a writing association, and went to brainstorming monthly calls for support from members, and the organizers also made the financial issue a hurdle. I said I am flat broke - it's not like I have money sitting around and don't see the value in hiring an editor - and the organizer tried to pressure me that the "cost was worth it." The only thing I hear is "because you are broke, your financial situation will be an obstacle for success." That was pretty triggering.
The writer friend referred me to someone who had helped other people who "were having problems with getting responses from publishing." He fixes proposals. Except, that wasn't my woe. I have had incredibly positive green lights from industry professionals. My only issue is getting the proposal across the finish line, and getting these chapter summaries finished. It's such a minor piece. The proposal content itself is apparently good to go. This guy she referred was coercive. He wanted to charge me $200 for a consultation call. The first thing he did was offer a title, and I've ranted about this in another blog post. He also complained my proposal was written in third person, and didn't contain my backstory. (which somoene else thought I should make the introduction to the book) None of these things are parts of the proposal I have received any feedback about needing to change, and seemed entirely subjective. Therefore, he wanted me to pay him to redo the proposal his way, for him to take over the proposal and produce something fitting his formula, which may be successful, but is money that I DO NOT HAVE. And do not want to be manipulated, coerced, or abused for being poor.
Then I talked to a series of people, I really felt like I was scraping the bottom of the barrel. A religious extremist with "best-sellers" at Christian publishers writing books about how the world is ending. Hard pass. Another guy who claimed I needed 100 pages of example content to sell the book. Said no agent ever.
That's the kind of contrast you have when life isn't a mystery, when you actually know what you are doing, know the status and quality of the project you have produced so far. This echos back to the editors who looked at my novel and told me all kinds of crazy things and then were emotionally abusive and attacked me personally when I disagreed! What is wrong with people? That's the question it makes me ask? Why is it so hard for me to find support for what I need in the writing world without this gauntlet of abuse, coercion, name calling, and overall nastiness?
I also met with an academic linguist to discuss an angle of the topic to see if was worth pursuing. He told me I was naive to think I could make a difference. Which flies directly in contrast to the proof of concept when these exact arguments have been applied in the real world. However, when it became so overwhelming to get such a small amount of support that I needed to finish the proposal, it starts to feel right. Why is he wrong if people treat me this horribly for having something that's almost finished. Moral support is what's lacking in this picture. Why is that something people feel it's acceptable to withhold to punish someone for appearing to know what she's doing?
In this state, I touched base with the young graduate about her interviews etc. She volunteered to answer some of the questions these coercive people who wanted or needed to find faults had raised. She had read slush pile submissions for her top tier agents and knew what standard they expected to see for the books they accepted. She answered some formatting questions, thought the pov was fine, liked the strong presentation I made. Said the section missing was the chapter descriptions. Like I had been trying to find help with. That's it. That's all I needed.
The final contrast came when I met up with my friend Monday. She organises our writing group. Last week she mentioned she was helping someone with their book structure, and I looked at her and asked "do you provide that kind of service?" Then I explained what I needed, and she said sure, for that minimal kind of work, she could charge 25/ hour. DEAL! I sent her the proposal Friday for her to look over, and met with her Monday. Her first comment to me was really like she didn't understand why I needed her help with anything. She said "your detailed outline has the chapters right there. The structure is very clear."
All of the people who think I'm lying when I say "hey, I feel good about where this proposal is at, have a lot of green lights from the industry, and just need this tiny bit done for a few hours." Why? Why is that so hard for people to believe? Why do they need to beat me down when I say that? Why do they need to make that about me thinking too highly of myself? "Exalting myself?" Why do they need to be right that they need to come overhaul and redo a proposal that is already good quality and working? I do not fundamentally understand the instant knee jerk reaction that I have to be wrong, and if I claim I'm right, that makes me a bitch who can't respect or work with people. None of these people are gatekeepers. None of them are actual publishers or agents making any decisions about what gets published. There is something significantly wrong with this behaviour pattern.
Do you have these experiences? What can we as writers do about this plague of people trying to beat writers down or "into submission?"
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