Unprofessional behavior is a sad fact of life. But like everything else, it pays to know the rules. At the Washington Romance Writers yearly Retreat, we play a game called Romance Jeopardy, and the cardinal rule that everyone must repeat over and over is "this game is not fair."
The same is true of life and especially of publishing. Many people write, a few write really well, but all are after the same publishing contracts, the same reader dollars. It is amazing to me that people are as forthcoming and helpful as they are.
Survivor is a favorite TV program of mine. Many people must agree with me because CBS keeps renewing the show each year. The show motto is outwit, outlast, and outplay. Survival is linked to forming alliances and having the right numbers to ward off being voted out. However, all alliances fail as the numbers dwindle and the money seems to be within a players grasp. Time and again, a player believes they are in control of the game and the others bring him/her down without a qualm.
What's that got to do with publishing? People behave the same way universally. Writers will form alliances and writers groups to help others along, until their associates become a competitive threat, or a drain of time. Then these competitors become inconvenient and a liability. I've seen this in critique groups. When one person gets a contract, the others believe they helped her and now she has to help them get a contract, and that almost never happens. Life doesn't work that way. It all goes back to WRW's Romance Jeopardy cardinal rule: "This game is not fair!"
If someone does you wrong in life or in publishing, and I've had this happen to me, you have to look to your own inner ethics to determine your behavior. I recently had a reviewer rip my work up one side and down the other. It was unpleasant, but it is a fact of life in publishing. You can't please everyone. That's why its important to know who you are and what you're hoping to get out of this.
Are you really writing for the money? For fame? Chances are those goals will be attained by only a small percentage of writers. What can you realistically do? You can sit down to write the best story you can possibly write. Everything else is just noise in the system. Publishing contracts? You can't control that. Reviewers? You can't control them. Friends? You can't control them, although you can chose to not associate with folks who've stepped on your back as they've reached for the top.
Know who you are and what you're hoping to achieve by publishing your work. Because it always boils down to this: "This game is not fair!"
Maggie Toussaint
House of Lies, ISBN 1061540310
Seeing Red, coming soon from Freya's Bower
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