While it seems like The Last Track has taken forever to reach print, and it’s still six months out from release, one writer of note who know had two novels on the NYT best seller list had a far tougher and longer journey. Consider the story:

Imagine writing a novel, spending years trying to get picked up, weathering 130 rejections, then landing an agent. The agent sticks with you for nine years, then drops you because the novel is “unsellable”. So the author presses on and places the book ( without an agent ). Publishing weathers a recession–not to be confused with the current depression–and a book scheduled for release dies on the vine because the very large conglomerate kills the imprint and all its projects.

In the event of economic upheaval, you might think the book would revert back to the author who could again begin the shopping process anew. Negative. You then spend two years trying to get the rights back to a novel that the publisher had neither the means nor the intention of publishing. Keep in mind, this is a huge company to be fighting, with tremendous resources.

Fortunately for my new writing hero, he got the rights back, put the book out on his own and got picked up by a huge publisher who threw a bit of their weight behind the release. Now he’s mining silver and gold instead of paper cuts.

To me, I find three morals to the story. First: never never never give up on a project. The only subjective measure of a manuscript is reader feedback. If they haven’t had a chance to weigh in, nothing else matters.

Second, writing and publishing are two different businesses entirely. One can be an excellent writer and a failure in publishing, or a crappy writer yet quite successful at the cash register. Or any combination in between.

Finally, literary agents have had their day. Oh, they will continue to exist for quite awhile, largely because successful writers don’t want to deal with the publisher; authors would rather be writing. Or talking about it, at least. As long as publishers are paying large advances for celebrity books and authors with a track record, there will be agents sucking at the teat. But agents are less the arbiters of viability and more an annoyance the publisher would rather sidestep.

Increasingly the market decides what sinks or floats.