I'm not one of those, but I'd like to be, so John Scalzi's rant is a valuable bit of etiquette instruction for me. This portion in particular, though awkwardly written, resonated:
My problem--and it's a good one to have, I guess--is that I live in gut-crunching fear of coming across as an egomaniac in e-mail exchanges with an editor who's agreed to publish my work. Part of the reason for that is that editors are busy people and their e-mails to someone who is basically a stranger can be short and impersonal. But the greater portion is my own neurotic fear...for example, I got paid for the Spanish translation of "...Sumerian Pot..." when it was published in Letras Libres, at which point the writing became something of a product, and a business transaction. I worry that my correspondence with editor Ramón González was overly focused on securing payment, and the whole thing was a bit nerve-wracking because I was dealing with arranging said payment across an international border using a language I don't speak very well. So, on the one hand, I fear I came across as an ungracious, grasping materialist, and on the other hand I fear that any attempt to correct that possible impression would just come across as neurotic and unprofessional.
It's early days yet, and by nature I'm inclined to worry about social interaction in general. I suppose I should take some solace in the fact that I'm actually concerned about etiquette and the impression I make, even if it means I occasionally feel like a boorish Philistine and become paralyzed with the fear of not knowing how I actually come across. Judging by what Scalzi has to say, there are some people who aren't concerned about that sort of thing at all.
What it comes down to is that the belief that selling work really comes down to who you know is magical thinking, or at the very least it's wildly overrated in terms of what actually sells work. Yes, there are authors for whom their assurance of a blurb on your cover might convince a publisher to buy your novel, sight (and quality) unseen. Currently, they are called "Stephenie Meyer" and "Dan Brown."That's part of a syndrome I've written about before: a focus on getting published, as opposed to writing. It's akin to a neophyte pitching a novel he hasn't finished yet, before he's ever published a lengthy work of fiction. Stephen King gets to sell an idea for a book he hasn't written (and so, most likely, does Dan Brown). Me? Not so much.
My problem--and it's a good one to have, I guess--is that I live in gut-crunching fear of coming across as an egomaniac in e-mail exchanges with an editor who's agreed to publish my work. Part of the reason for that is that editors are busy people and their e-mails to someone who is basically a stranger can be short and impersonal. But the greater portion is my own neurotic fear...for example, I got paid for the Spanish translation of "...Sumerian Pot..." when it was published in Letras Libres, at which point the writing became something of a product, and a business transaction. I worry that my correspondence with editor Ramón González was overly focused on securing payment, and the whole thing was a bit nerve-wracking because I was dealing with arranging said payment across an international border using a language I don't speak very well. So, on the one hand, I fear I came across as an ungracious, grasping materialist, and on the other hand I fear that any attempt to correct that possible impression would just come across as neurotic and unprofessional.
It's early days yet, and by nature I'm inclined to worry about social interaction in general. I suppose I should take some solace in the fact that I'm actually concerned about etiquette and the impression I make, even if it means I occasionally feel like a boorish Philistine and become paralyzed with the fear of not knowing how I actually come across. Judging by what Scalzi has to say, there are some people who aren't concerned about that sort of thing at all.
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