Writing | Career
Why I Stopped Dealing With Book Publishers
A book agent “came back from the dead” to haunt me.
18 months ago, I put together a 40 page book proposal. I merged in some of my most popular Medium and Quora content, and expanded it substantially into two well fleshed out sample chapters. I’d already ghostwritten a book for a client that did well and felt confident I could write something people loved.
Yet I had no illusions about the mountain in front of me. Publishers are swarmed with submissions each week.
I had a call with a book agent who gave me another hard truth: White dudes aren’t in fashion right now. Many of the agencies and publishers I visited stressed their focus on diversity and underrepresented communities — which is well and good. The industry has been mostly white for decades.
However, it wasn’t good for me when I stood in my bathroom mirror. I’m a 6’4 blonde dude who looks like a poster child for the Aryan race. But I wasn’t about to let that be my excuse.
I fired out 20 submissions each week. The rejections trickled in. More than half the publishers and agents outright ghosted me. Other rejections arrived many months later. Fortunately, I spoke with two publishers and an agent and nearly landed a deal with a…
