It's a Buyer's Market

Thinking just now about the whole interplay between writers and agents, I was again struck by the idea that the publishing business is a buyer's market.

I like analogies, so here's one for you. (And please keep in mind that no analogy is perfect or it wouldn't be an analogy.)

Selling a novel is like selling your house. Think about it. You want to sell your house, and it may very well be the best house out there, but if there are hundreds of other houses in your area on the market, it's going to make your house much harder to sell.

Maybe when perspective buyers look at your house, it needs a bit of cleaning. (Liken this to editing, if you will.) If the next house they walk through is spotless, they're going to look on that next house more favorably than yours, even if yours is actually the better of the two.

Maybe your house is too small or too big for the current market.

Maybe your house is laid out differently than most houses and it might not meet the needs of most people. It may be there's one particular buyer for you, but even though finding that one buyer is like looking for a needle in a haystack, they are out there somewhere.

Maybe it's the paint. Your house is white inside because you want the perspective buyers to be able to be able to imagine how the house will fit with their belongings. Or your house is splashed with color because you hope it will make a buyer feel more comfortable.

Maybe fifty people look at your house, and none of them wants to buy it. Instead they want Mr. Grisham's house down the street or Ms. Ketterman's on the next block over. It doesn't mean your house is awful. It just means maybe your house wasn't right for them.

Of course, this being a buyer's market means we have to put up with a few things we wouldn't have to if all things were equal here. It means that we have to jump through hoops. *shrug* It's the nature of the game if you want your house to sell. Maybe it means spending some extra time painting or cleaning or remodeling to fit the needs of the market. Maybe it just means putting up with the idiosyncrasies of a real estate agent who wasn't your first choice (and maybe forgiving him if he can't quite spell everything right in his correspondence with you).

And sometimes it means having your house on the market for a while until you find the right agent and the right buyer. It doesn't mean burning your house to the ground because it's crap (as I've heard some writers do with their manuscripts), and it doesn't mean striking out at the real estate agents or the buyers. It just means accepting that now is not the right time for your sale.

Who knows, maybe the next couple to walk through will be ones who say "This is the nicest house I've ever seen. How much do you want for it?"