The toxicity of the "just work harder" mentality in publishing, and Substack

Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash

With the rise of Notes on Substack I’ve also been seeing the rise of a certain type of writing advice essay that is, frankly, toxic. It tends to characterize smaller, less-visible accounts as “amateur” and “not hard-working” and holds out the false hope that if you work hard enough, you will succeed in writing. That if you are not succeeding, your writing isn’t good enough or you aren’t working hard enough to promote yourself.

That luck and timing aren’t a factor.

That connections and who you know aren’t a factor.

Of course, most of those accounts don’t disclose that they either were recruited and are getting paid to write for Substack (above and beyond the subscription fees) or else they brought over a large stable of followers from whereever they were writing before. Many of these writers are young, or approaching middle age. In some form or another—either through mentors, writing program connections, family wealth, or timing—they got a leg up in the publishing business.

The reality of publishing has always been that luck, timing, and connections matter as much as the quality of your work. That one editor who likes what you write and buys nearly everything you send them¹. Having a book ready to launch when a bigger name on the publisher’s release list doesn’t make deadline, so that you end up with their higher-visibility promotional spot². Having a book that just happens to be timely upon release so that it goes viral³. Meeting that perfect agent at a writers’ conference.⁴ And more stories like that.

The current trend, fueled by organizations such as the former 20Books to 50k and now Substack, tends to reward quantity in writing over quality. Use A.I. to generate ideas and plots. Crank out those short 40k-50k works so that you’re releasing a book every month or so. Crank out x number of weekly essay posts on Substack, and if you aren’t doing that, you’re slacking.

In other words, if you aren’t regularly cranking out a high volume of words, you aren’t working hard enough.

The “working hard enough” notion goes back to the idea that if you write a lot for long enough, you’ll earn writing success.

Pardon me while I decide whether to laugh or cry at that notion. In part this is because I have a nice little collection of writers on my shelf who did the work, who showed up, but for various reasons (including political) never did more than fade into obscurity. Sadly for me, it looks like I probably belong on that same shelf.

Not for lack of effort and attempts to break in to the publishing establishment.

I don’t know why, even when I made the newspaper class my first elective choice in junior high and high school, I was never admitted to that class. Oh, it was probably as much a case of social cliques and privilege for the honor roll kids as anything else. I did work on the school literary magazine (in junior high) instead. I wrote and submitted work to assorted magazines, but stupidly didn’t identify myself as a high school student. If anything, I had been led to believe that would be detrimental to my publication chances. Now, well…I know better.

College was a mess, brought on in part by undiagnosed ADHD, family issues and relationship stuff. That’s probably where my future course of publishing obscurity was set, because I didn’t network with professors who could have guided me. Any creative writing instructor I worked with scorned the science fiction and fantasy I wanted to write.

I bashed around, and finally started submitting novels in the late ‘80s. Started sending out short stories in the ‘90s. I tried to attend some workshops and writing groups, but I also had a young special needs child who needed my presence. I couldn’t go away to the prestigious workshops that might have provided me with the connections I needed.

Ironically, while my short stories and novels weren’t going anywhere, I was getting essays published in the Portland zine scene during this period. It was enough that one friend suggested I focus on that instead of fiction—in retrospect, it was clear that person thought I was a potential competitor for their partner and was trying to steer me away from fiction as a result.

I tried it, but while I could bang out decent opinion columns, I wasn’t writing the kind of thing that bigger markets beyond local zines were buying. Heck, if Substack and Medium had existed then, I might have made it big because I was writing the kind of stuff that now hits well here. A factor of timing, because such writing is no longer my priority.

However, I did make a little money on the side writing a column for the school newspaper during grad school while I was getting my teaching certificate. And in my early teaching years, I supplemented my fiction writing with occasional blogs about learning disabilities (one was even cited by a major organization in the field). But—again, as it turned out, the professional writing piece fell apart. Those paying informational blogs went away.

After hitting the bigger markets with novel queries and getting plenty of “love your voice, love your work, can’t sell it” rejects, I ended up moving into self-publishing for my long form work. At the same time, I earned a semifinalist placement in Writers of the Future. Ironically, other than a detailed critique, I didn’t even get as much as a certificate for my placement—as opposed to a later Honorable Mention placement where I did get a certificate. Later semifinalists got certificates. This pattern followed when I entered a self-published novel contest—another semifinalist placement, a review that said “best author I’ve never heard of”, and…nothing else. A few years later, badges and challenge coins showed up.

And so on. A mentorship that helped with my writing but not much else. Opportunities that crashed when someone got sick or died. Timing—planning to pitch a breakout book at World Fantasy that got derailed by the pandemic.

Most of all, one convention panel featuring a high-level New York editor. I went in there with other friends, either midlist traditionally published or self-published. All of us were middle aged women at the time. All of us walked out of the panel with the sinking sensation that “New York doesn’t want us.” The editor talked about high-concept work. Quirky work. Implied that unusual, quirky lifestyles would help in selling our work without actually saying so.

And so on.

So when I read an essay about writing which says “just work harder for success,” I’m laughing in their faces—if I’m not enraged and wanting to slap them silly. I have years of experience in writing and publishing (haven’t mentioned a couple of editing gigs, either).

The reality is that you can work your behind off for years in publishing and not get anywhere.

However, that hard work puts you into the place where if an opportunity opens, you can take advantage of it.

Also however, for a lot of us, that opportunity may never open, or it may crash halfway through the process, with nothing much to show for it. That’s been my story, for years now.

Doesn’t mean I stop working.

But if a privileged, successful writer implies or suggests that success isn’t happening because the less-successful writers aren’t working hard enough, this sixty-six year old woman isn’t going to hesitate to yell about that person’s punching down and their assumptions.

Because I’ve seen too damn many examples to the contrary, and not just myself.

1. Asimov, Heinlein, and several other “Golden Age” SFF writers with John W. Campbell, for example.

2. This happened to one of my traditionally published friends. Always meet your deadlines, people!

3. We all can cite one or two of these works.

4. Jean Auel met her agent at the Willamette Writers conference in Portland—and she’s not the only one.