The unfairness of the publishing world
If you are following any kind of social media regarding the book world, #Booktok, #Authortok, #bookstagram, any of the hashtag/socials that discuss books, publishing, and authors, you have heard the name LUKE BATEMAN in the past few days.
Luke is a thirty-something, WHITE MALE Aussie farmer/former Rugby player who queried an agent a few months ago about a book idea, and never heard anything back. He decided to join Tiktok/Booktok, made a post where he held up a “smutty fantasy” book, said he had ideas while wiggling his eyebrows, immediately got over a million followers ( mostly women!) and then suddenly, a few days ago, he announced ( and was verified by a publishing trade journal) that based on that post he acquired an agent, a publishing contract for over a million dollars and a two book romance deal. Cinder-fella story, right?
Here’s the clicker: Luke self admits he has never written a word in his life. The publisher knows this. The agent knows this.
One million dollars and a two book deal. There is word on the street it’s already being considered a for a five book series.
And let me repeat: he self admitted he has never written a word in his life. He just likes to read.
How the hell is this fair? There are authors (I am one of them) who have been toiling at this for years – decades – querying agent after agent; attending book events in the hopes to pitch to editors; writing, perfectly our craft, doing everything and anything we can to hawk our books, get a trad publishing deal, have our own Cinderella stories…and this jerk comes out of the blue and has the keys to the kingdom handed to him?
Because he’s good looking and has a big social following and likes “fantasy smut?”
When he posted his I GOT A BOOKDEAL video on Booktok, he blatantly said, “I can’t wait to write this book.”
So…he’s never written a book, never written a word of romantasy and he’s now gonna write one because he got paid to do so.
My thoughts are so all over the place on this it’s almost a schizophrenic dervish in my brain.
This is the reason so many fabulous authors have left tradition publishing, and so many others who were never picked up by publishing houses chose to go indie. The gatekeeping that agents do for the trad houses is disgusting. The only reason – and let’s be clear on the fact he’s never written a word – he got picked up is because he had a semblance of an idea, is good looking ( i don’t think so, but most others do) white, and male. If you think this is sour grapes on my part – think again, because it’s not.
BIPOC authors, marginalized authors and women have been kept out of the traditional publishing upper echelons for decades, now more than ever. The very fact that this man could come out of bloody nowhere – okay, Australia isn’t nowhere but you know what I mean – and have this happen because of a post he put up on social media just proves that no matter how hard you try, white males with nothing to show for themselves are always going to come out on the top of the heap.
I’m betting that when he gets off his tractor and sits down to write this epic romantasy book that he had a concept of an idea for, that it’s going to be heavily AI generated.
Bet me.
