Newsflash via the NYT: Things are Tough for New Novelists

If you don't laugh at this, you'll really have to cry. If you're an aspiring novelist, you may find yourself weeping. The New York Times has an article about the pseudo-anonymous novel The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling. If you're not aware: Rowling wanted to see how publishing feels for the rest of us, so she used a pseudonym (Robert Galbraith)  to sell a mystery novel, which got only a few mediocre reviews and sold few copies. She planned to reveal herself as the true author but was sad that it got leaked so soon: "I had hoped to keep this secret a little longer, because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience. It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation, and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name" (quoted in The Author's Guild article on this same phenomenon). I don't know how to feel about this. The Queen dresses as a peasant and goes out to wander the city, and is surprised when her cover is blown. She intended to blow her own cover, but gosh, somebody beat her to it.  What's that about? The theories in my head are not complementary, so I'll let this aside for the moment after pointing out that Rowling stood to make no money from the novel, all the proceeds go to charity. The thing you need to know is, she wrote a mystery. It did not sell, and got mediocre reviews. Somebody leaked the fact that she was in fact the author, and sales are now through the roof. And positive reviews are pouring in. A lot of negative ones, too, but quite a few that glow on […]