The Mediagenic Author

Does being handsome or beautiful increase your odds of being published and succeeding as a writer?

The answer seems to be yes and yes and yes. Is this fair? No. But what the hell else is fair about publishing?

Is this always true? No. I won't point to an example because I'm not going to make the judgement of who is or isn't attractive, but of course there are plenty of people who succeed because they write well.

I will also admit to at times thinking if I took on a female pen name that it would increase my chances of being published. Then I realize that it would only increase the chance that I'm an idiot.

The point is, writing and who gets published and paid well are completely, or at least mostly subjective things. And we know this. How many of us ease our broken hearts after receiving a rejection for a piece we thought would be bought by saying [name of famous book or author] was rejected one-hundred times before they received a yes?

As a group, we have more ways to convince ourselves of our impending success than nearly any other profession. And we do this because the only thing worse than writing and being rejected is not writing and submitting.

Think of it this way: Each submission is a lottery ticket. We can wake each morning hopeful that today is the day the call or email comes to announce our career has just taken a major step forward. We can push send/receive with a little prayer that a single, wonderful email will appear.

[SHAMELESS PLUG] I like to think that by ghostwriting a book and/or writing the query and proposal as well as mentoring a writer I can help increase the chance of their lottery ticket being a winner.

Meanwhile, I keep writing my own lottery tickets and sending them out.