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" Writers are tough sons-of-bitches. It’s hard enough to write a book. Then you have to wade into this street fight we call the publishing industry and start pitching your project. The tweed jacket crowd is gone, replaced by Darwinian corporate mergers, staff churn, the e-book earthquake, anti-trust pricing scuffles, and book platforms multiplying like rabbits. You have to sort through too much personal information on too few agents, searching for a hook, parsing what they love, and what they want, and exactly how they want it presented. Your pitch letter has to be pitch perfect, a polished gem. You gotta sell more than a well-wrought paragraph; only Clancy and Cussler get a promo budget. You gotta show them you’ve got a social media game – tweet, facebook, link-in, chat, blog. You gotta help them sell your book.
So what.
I wouldn’t trade this trade for anything. Thanks, Gutenberg, for inventing this game I love. "
― Michael Schmicker
