Staying Soft Doesn't Mean Staying Small

Four things I wish I'd told myself about publishing before publishing

Read the other day’s post first if you want the back story of why this feels important to write today. This is a sort of Part II of that piece.

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I’ve never been a person who believes everyone has a book in them. Everyone has a story in them,¹ but it doesn’t need to be turned into a book, nor is everyone equipped with the gift of wordsmithing. That’s not to gatekeep the writing of books, but writing is a skill not everyone has.²

There are, however, a lot of talented writers who have had their feet knocked out beneath them. Writers with not just a body of work behind them, but the specific skill set and experience around their subject matter, who have submitted proposals and heard crickets, while brand new writers with no experience or particular skill sets have gotten, in Publisher’s Weekly vernacular, “very nice deals.”³ I know talented writers who write slow, thoughtful, precise pieces with impeccable research who get offered $10k for an advance while the same publisher⁴ (make sure to read that footnote there for how I’m using the word publisher) offers a rising star on Instagram $80k in the same week. I know writers who have spent their lives invested in particular communities or institutions instead of building up their social numbers, who, when they want to write a thoughtful, experienced book, they get noes across the pub boards, while someone who dipped their toe in the same communities or institutions for a hot second and left with a salacious story about it, gets their book sold at a competitive auction.

An agent friend said to me recently, “Madeleine L’Engle and Eugene Peterson couldn’t get published today,” and what a travesty that would be.

The proof of what many publishers will and won’t buy in 2026 is there for anyone with eyes to see, despite protestations of being in it for the love of books. It’s gaslighting to say that when the evidence is clear. The dissonance makes writers feel crazy.

The result is talented writers who get discouraged, disheartened, and feel silenced around their journey to publishing. And the worst part of it is if they want a future in book writing at all, they can’t talk about their experience because they don’t want to burn bridges or lose potential connections. Especially for women writers coming from conservative religious spaces where they have been, as Sarah said to me, “conditioned to shame themselves for taking up the only space they were told they could,” it can be a bewildering and isolating time.

Writers are sensitive souls and we shouldn’t want them any other way. Writers are prophets who see into the future or the past and have insight and imagination, poetry and vision, beauty and hope for the rest of us. Writers should have thin skin, transparent and permeable. We should be able to see right into them, right inside them, right through them. We should want them to access their emotions easily and write about them with specificity.

That is a writer’s superpower—what you see is what you get.

It is a true gift to be able to distill a complex thing into precise language. It is a gift to be able to see disparate views and coalesce them. It is profound to be able to look at darkness and find light or look at light and not ignore the shadows. We do not want writers to be hardened, we want them soft and fluid, “strong, like water.”⁵

Exposing our work to the world (editors, publishers, readers) can harden even the best of us if we’re not careful. But prophets burn bridges if the bridge is going to lead other people into lands that are going to hurt them.

For me to speak publicly about these things isn’t advisable but I won’t be quiet about it. I refuse to let you believe that you have to look at certain way, have certain social media numbers, have a salacious story to tell, or a lot of money behind you in order for you to take up the space you need and advocate for the true, good, and beautiful book you poured your whole self into.

David Burk, Back Bay

I’ve been saying some things to myself on repeat the last month. Trying to press some hard truths into my soft heart. Not to make me impermeable but to remind me of what’s true.

I can stay soft and sensitive, while holding some central truths at arm’s length. I don’t have to invite all these truths into my body, capitulate to them at every turn. But I can invite them into the same room with me.

My inclination with much of the business side of this industry is to ignore. I hide stats across my social platforms if I’m able, do not check a rise or fall in followers, have no idea who is subscribing or unsubscribing. I never open my sales envelopes when they come quarterly. I never read reviews on Amazon or Goodreads. I never check Bookscan or look at my (or others) books rankings on Amazon.

This has been my tactic for remaining soft: ignore. Pretend none of that exists. The words are the only thing that matters. And in my case, I don’t have a lot of regrets around doing that. I never want metrics to come close to the importance of words, what they do in me and what they can do for you.

However, if I were at the beginning of my book publishing career,⁶ here’s what I’d say to myself about advocating for my book and myself. This is especially pertinent for women, particularly women with similar conservative religious backgrounds like me, who have been conditioned to shame ourselves, not be a bother, not take up space, and not burn bridges: