What this tells me is that signing book deals is not about how good the book is or how good the author is, but the kind of exposure they have and the built in customers they can bring. Which is why terrible books like Shop Girl by Steve Martin get published. Or Cat Person’s next rambling shit show.
This is exactly the same for all entertainment, from movies to games. Exposure (either marketing budget or “built in” like in this case) is, by a big margin, the best predictor of sales.
That’s so depressing. Merit should rise to the top somehow. The problem is really the media. If they pick up your story you are golden. If they reject you or don’t care you wallow in obscurity.
I had some personal experience with this with a website I made years ago. No one visited, it was just a tiny little thing, and then randomly the NYT called and asked for an interview. I gave it and as exciting as it was to be interviewed, thought the story would probably die in obscurity. I went overseas for a few months and when I came back I had like 20 interview requests from worldwide media, invitations to go on Howard Stern, Regis and Kathy Lee, producers calling me about making a TV show about me, job offers to come to Hollywood as a producer, all kinds of craziness. Chuck D was calling and trying to get me to do a collaboration, all kinds of other famous people were contacting me. All outta nowhere.
It’s boom or bust, and not really based on merit, but exposure alone. Getting that exposure? I have no idea beside excessive and persistent self-aggrandizing, which is the opposite of my personality, I’m self effacing.
It worked really well for Trump though.
Get the fuck outta here Guap. That’s a great story. Now I want to know what the website was!
If you get some writing into the New Yorker, you’re a talented writer, even if you don’t get a 7 figure book deal. That was a risky story to tell. It didn’t rely on a bogus heavy but instead presented a complicated subject in a way that was easy to relate to. Timing was great because of the #metoo conversation. She was lucky, but not undeserving.
One of the writers on this board might see similar luck one day, but it’s unlikely. Not because of a lack of talent, but just because it’s rare.
Brickfilms.com was the site. It’s still up, but the new owner (I sold it, then it was resold) pissed off the community so it’s basically dead.
Awesome. I hope that the short story was just the outline and we will get to enjoy the awkwardness of their failed relationship for 200 juicy pages.
Also, sadface.
Arise! You Know You Want This by Kristen Roupenian, author of “Cat Person,” released her first book earlier this year. I just checked it out at the library and read the first couple short stories in the collection. I was shocked to discover… she’s a horror writer! According to Wikipedia, she’s got a horror screenplay coming out via A24 called Bodies, Bodies, Bodies.
Anyone else read her other short stories?
Arise! “Cat Person” is the story that keeps on giving.
Authors draw from life, and in this case the author may have drawn a little too closely. A woman recognized her own life story matching the main character in Cat Person. This kind of thing happens all the time. I remember a documentary on Taxi Driver where some nut tracked down Paul Schrader, thinking that he stole the Travis Bickel character from him. But here, the writer of this essay found that indeed her life had been borrowed to create that character in the short story. Surprise!
I empathized with the guy in the story the first time around. First he’s been immortalized in fiction, now he’s described in description, and may have gathered a few more reasons to feel sympathy for him.
