A Million Little Industry Blogs

Today I will discuss my addiction (and yes, it’s totally true!): industry blogs. Oh, lordie, do I read ’em. Making Light, POD-y Mouth, Bookseller Chick, Writer Beware, Booksquare, Miss Snark, Buzz, Balls, & Hype, Jennifer Jackson, Nephele Tempest, Agent Obscura, my own, dear Knight Agency Blog… the list goes on and on. (And if I didn’t mention it here, it’s in the interest of space, not because I don’t slavishly follow it anyway) I miss the old dead ones as well. R.I.P. Mad Max (who is now unmasked… who knew?), and whatever happened to Agent 007? I even read Book Covers from The New York Times Book Review, which is a really brilliant blog if you’re as art-deficient as me. I learn so much (even if I think the rather eccentric taste of the guy who runs it is particularly transparent). I’d love to get his take on my cover — then again, he has nothing but hatred for symmetry, and I’ve always rather like it.

Sailor Boy wants to know why, since I already have an agent and a publisher, I read all this stuff from other agents, editors, publicity people, book designers, etc. Well, it’s not because I’m more interested in Miss Snark’s opinion than my own agent’s opinion on some industry point, as I’m afraid some readers of her blog are — they ask Miss Snark before they ask their own agent, who is the one who knows all the details of the issue and is paid to answer the question besides. Idiots. However, thus it always is with anonymous advice columnists. People will ask all manner of things to Dear Abby that they’d never tell a trusted friend. Still, that’s usually personal advice, rather than business advice, and since you are basically paying an agent to be your business consultant, it’s rather odd that you are running things past some anonymous individual that you know nothing about. Me? I think she’s an agent, and I think she’s mostly right. But I don’t ask her about my career. That kind of stuff I save for Agent Negotiateur and Sailor Boy. But I digress.

Anyway, the reason I still read these things is because there’s always something new to learn. For instance, on Miss Snark’s blog today, there was a fabulous lesson on the difference between correlation and causation. It was one of the old “You say to follow the rules when you query, but I broke all the rules and I got an agent anyway, so nyah!” conversations that become so tiresome. A brilliant commentator named jarsto followed up with:

I once got a good grade on a paper I wrote mainly in the night before it was due. This doesn’t mean that waiting until the night before something is due and skipping sleep to write the paper is a strategy for getting good grades.

All the arguments I’ve seen against breaking the rules just because it worked for someone else, perfectly encapsulated in that simple analogy. (I don’t think J.A. Konrath sold his book *because* he didn’t give them the SASE with which to reject it. I think he sold it because it was good. The real reason John Grisham (or whatever example he used) doesn’t include SASEs with his submissions is because they are already under contract. He’s already been paid for them, and if they need to be sent back for revisions or whatever, well, that’s what we call OVERHEAD. I never include an SASE with the contracted and paid for manuscripts I send to my editor either. Sheesh! That guy, who can often be so intelligent about this business ( seriously, check out his “why PODs are a bad idea” post, which is brilliant!) can also sometimes have his head in the sand.)

The phrase you are looking for is “Correlation, not causation.”