I've been told by actual published authors that if everyone rejects your book you need to work your ass off revising, listening to feedback, identifying what does and doesn't work for your story, etc. before trying again. And even then maybe the biggest lesson you can learn is that your story isn't that great and you can only put it away, and start another one.
I don't know how literal Lindsay Ellis is being when she says her book languished for years until someone took pity on her. Did she even try to improve her manuscript? Or did she just look for someone who believed her social media presence would be sufficient to get enough people to buy her books?
As to the success of her published books, if her books were selling well then why did she post: "I don't even know how I can keep writing, because my name is attached to my books, and my name is the thing that's most toxic."
If her books were selling well, then it wouldn't matter if her name is "toxic".
I had expected her to say, "Now I can work on my book writing" since she's decided to quit Youtube. But it sounds like that has fallen completely through.
I don't know what authors told you that, but they're absolutely right. Rejection and revision is part of the process, and it absolutely makes your work better.
Ironically, by using her social media following to jump in line, Ellis probably kneecapped herself... there's no way either of her books has ever seen an editor's pen. Truth in the Divine especially, had it crossed my desk, would have either been a rejection or page 1 rewrite.
You're right though - publishers don't give a fuck how toxic you are, they just care that you sell books. For all their crowing about social justice, put a gun to their head, and make them pick between one of their danger hairs with a Hugo nomination, or Orson Scott Card, they'll kick that pink hair to the curb so fast heads would spin. Hell, did cancelation efforts kill the careers of Larry Correia or any of the Puppies? Or for that matter, NK Jemison after she nearly drove Isabel Fall to suicide?
The only thing that makes your name too toxic to touch in publishing is not being able to sell books... and guess what?
That's why the books tanking is probably hitting Ellis so hard - this is the first time in her life that she's not riding Doug Walker or BreadTube's coattails, she's on her own selling something entirely on her own merits in front of the entire world...
And she's failing because people don't want it. She's forced to confront the fact that her actual talent and influence is very thin indeed, and that KILLS her.
This dude put his rep on the line to push Lindsay's book, and all she did was not only give it minimal promotion, but she fucked up sales on the second book by doing even LESS PROMOTION for it, and then her Twitter fuck-ups poisoned the well.
I hope that any half-hearted, slobbery drunk jobbies she gave him was worth it.
I wish I knew somebody at St. Martin's Press. I just have to know what idiot looked at Ellis, her books, and that excuse of an agent of hers, and thought, "Yeah, this looks like a good use of company money."
So, I don't understand. Wouldn't she had made more money just self-publishing the fucker after running it through a few editors (assuming she even listens to editors) and pushing it at the end of all her youtube videos? Why go through a trad-pub with her kind of audience? Is this just some strange validation autism? Wouldn't draining a publisher of money, when she already has a platform, kill a bunch of authors who actually need the help?
Ding ding ding!
She absolutely would have made more money self-publishing this - hell, her Twilight Parody she wrote with her lackies a few years ago until very recently had more reviews on Amazon than Truth of the Divine did.
This was never about money for her, she wanted this book deal and a Hugo for the same reason she wanted that PBS gig and to be a director: legitimacy. And instead, she blew up a money printing machine (her YouTube) to sell fewer books than most D-list spec fiction authors.
And all the money her publisher blew on her advance, promotion and publication probably could have paid for the debut novels of a dozen new authors who just didn't have the luck to be Doug Walker's bottom bitch ten years ago.
