On Cliques and Cabals

Lately there has been a lot of talk about the “YA Mafia.”  

Now, on one hand, this is hilarious, because, come on…the idea of a
bunch of YA authors sitting around like a scene out of Goodfellas is pure gold.

On the other hand, the underlying conversation is troubling.  And the underlying conversation seems to be this:

1.  knowing the right people can help your career.

2.  ticking off the wrong people will hurt your career.

(Also, a lot of people are behaving very badly, but I won’t address that.  I will address 1 and 2.)

Now, are there individual instances where both of these things are true?  Probably.  But only very rarely and I would argue only in the very short run, and this business isn’t a sprint, folks; it’s a marathon. 

Who you know…

There is a notion that this business is about “connections” or “getting your name out there”.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but I loathe this notion.

I knew no one when my agent called to offer me representation.  I’ve received a “blurb” from one
New York Times Bestseller and that book sold
so few copies that I’m pretty sure my mom bought a pretty good percentage (due to no fault of the blurber, of course.  It was just the wrong book at the wrong time).

One of the things that I love about this business is that the only barrier to entry is doing the job well.  Don’t have a graduate degree?  No problem.  Don’t have a pocket full of favors you can call in?  Nobody cares. 

Do you have a book?  Is that book any good?  Is there a market for that book?  If the answers to those three questions are yes then you are in the running for your dream job.  I swear.

Will having a friend tell their agent “so-and-so is sending you a query” make that query stand out from the rest?  Maybe.  But it won’t get you signed.  You know what will get you signed?  Having a good, complete, and tremendously marketable novel.  No reference needed.

Blurbs

There’s been a lot of talk of blurbs with this discussion.  A “blurb”, by the way, is the little sentence on a book written by another author. 

“The best book I’ve read in ages.” –Ally Carter. 

“I loved this book more than snickerdoodles!” –Sarah Rees Brennan. 

You get the idea.

I’ve heard people make the case that blurbs apply to both #1 and #2 above–that authors are friends and friends give each other blurbs and therefore only the people who have friends have a chance at succeeding. 

Another popular argument has been that if a book blogger gives an author a bad review and that blogger later writes a book, then that author might refuse to blurb the blogger’s book, thus hurting the blogger-turned-author’s career.

I can see at least one problem with both of those arguments: blurbs don’t really make a big difference.  No, really.  They don’t. 

I can name a half dozen examples of books that got BIG blurbs that didn’t have big sales.  I can name books that didn’t have a single blurb that have a million copies in print.  If given the choice between the fabulous blurb and the beautiful cover then I’d take the beautiful cover every day.  (Not that those things are mutually exclusive, I’m just making a point that covers sell LOTS books.  Blurbs…eh…maybe a few.)

And, ps, I’m still confused why anyone would WANT a blurb from someone whose books they didn’t like.  The whole idea of a blurb is to say “If you like Author X you might like Author Y.”  But if Author Y hated Author X then there’s a very good chance readers who would like Author Y hated Author X too, but I digress.

The BEA Car Test

I think a lot of the debate has stemmed from the advice that, if you want to publish in the future you might want to be careful what you say now.  Many, many people seem to have taken this as a threat.  Was it intended that way?  I think not, but that’s not my point.  My point is that I advise everyone–be they authors or a bloggers or a candlestick makers–to consider the BEA Town Car test.

Picture it:  New York City, June 2007.  A wide-eyed farm girl is enjoying her first trip to Book Expo America when someone from her publisher says, “Here, Ally, there’s room in this car” and two seconds later she finds herself in the back of a towncar, pressed up against Eoin Colfer.

Eoin. Freaking. Colfer.

Never did I dream I would meet Eoin Colfer much less get stuck in midtown traffic, squeezed in between him and the head of sales for Disney-Hyperion, but it happened.  And today I’ve found myself thinking a lot about that car ride, giving thanks that 1. I liked Eoin’s books (and really like Eoin as a person once I got to know him.)  And 2. I didn’t crawl inside that car to find someone I didn’t like.  Or had had words with.  And so on and so on.

I’m not proposing censorship, and this is certainly not a warning–not a threat–just a general FYI.  You never know who you’re going to be squeezed into a car with at BEA.  You just don’t.  If you’re an aspiring author, then towncars and BEA might seem lightyears away, but trust me, a year from right now you might be the one shoved into that backseat.

On Blogging

So you want to be in that backseat someday, does that mean you shouldn’t blog?  Does it mean you shouldn’t have a Goodreads account or maybe only give positive reviews?

That’s totally up to you.  But I’ll add this:  everyone’s talking about negative reviews, but let’s say there’s a book
you love–L.O.V.E.  Let’s say you query an agent who hates that
book–H.A.T.E.  Maybe that signals to the agent that the two of
you have very different tastes and that you’d be best served with
another agent?

This is just one example and I use it to prove the point that the more information you put out there…the more information is out there. 

And it doesn’t just apply to books.  This why I don’t trash movies I hated or TV shows I don’t
get–I never know who might be looking to option the Gallagher Girls. 
It’s the reason I don’t play the “who would you like to see cast in the movie” game because I don’t want to say “Jon Hamm IS MR. SOLOMON!” and risk ticking off Kyle Chandler.

For me, choosing what to put out there isn’t about censoring.  It’s about exercising the best possible sense.

The “Clique” Factor

I’ve been thinking about this for more than 24 hours, and I think it’s lingering on my mind solely because of the clique factor.

“YA Authors are soooo cliqueish.”

It’s said a lot, and every time I find it very upsetting because “clique” is a very negative word.  To say that all the people in the YA community are “cliqueish” is like saying “all the people in the YA world are social climbers who use people to advance their own causes and exclude those who serve no purposes to them.”

Today I’ve even seen it said that these “cliques” are hurting the industry because people are–or are not–getting published based on who their friends are.

So…yeah…no wonder it’s upsetting.  It makes me feel dirty–like I should call Jennifer Lynn Barnes and tell her we can’t be friends anymore because the two of us making guacamole and watching Roswell is somehow going to bring down an entire industry.

But here’s the thing: guacamole and Roswell WILL NOT bring down the industry.  And even if it did I wouldn’t stop being Jen’s friend.  Because we are friends.  And nobody gets to tell me who my friends should be.  Or that we can be friends, but we shouldn’t talk on twitter or take trips together  because it’s “Bad for YA”. 

I’m friends with Holly and Cassie and Sarah and Sarah and Sara and Maureen and Emily and Lauren and Diana and Carrie and Melissa and…  I’m friends with these people.  Actual friends.  Real friends.

I’ve spent a lot of my life having a lot of acquaintances and very few really close friends and now that I have a wonderful group of friends a lot of people are mad about it?

Well no wonder this upsets me.

The thing I think no one really realizes is that a few years ago I didn’t know any of these people.  We didn’t band together to bring each other up or keep others down.  These are simply people who have hit it off at conferences and book festivals; these friendships have been forged over bad copyedits and good guacamole.  And, for the most part, my friends and I are almost all about the same “publishing age.” 

These are the people I have “grown up with” in the industry, and if you’re in the early stage of the game I can promise you this: the people you form your real friendships with will likely be the people you “grow up” with, too.

The Crazies, Part 2

I’ve debated a lot about whether or not I want to wade into the crazy pool that is this conversation in some circles.  There are some people throwing around some truly venemous things.  But in the end I am going to post it because, in the end, what I think we have here is a case of The Crazies, part 2.

Some of you may remember this post that I wrote a few months ago in which I discussed The Crazies–or the headgames that authors can play if they let themselves because, for the most part, we hold very little power over the future of our own careers.

So we fill the void with google and twitter and now, apparently, the notion that published authors are out there, gunning for bloggers and baring new authors at the door.

As Holly and Justine and others have already said, this isn’t true.  If you want a career as a published author, write a book worth publishing.  And then, eventually, that career will happen.

Blurb or not…

Recommendation or not…

Invitation to eat guacamole or not…

It really won’t matter in the long run.

 

-Ally