Why I Stopped Dealing With Book Publishers
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 “Big 5” publishing house (which includes Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Simon and Schuster, Harper Collins, and Macmillion).
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